Project Critique

I enjoyed following Jacob's research and our many existential conversations surrounding both our projects. In true Philosophical style, though not an armchair in sight, we sat in class in our ergonomic lab seats and mulled over the many problems of the world concerning reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language. Jacob researched The Technological Singularity, a concept which I think is highly relevant in terms of Western thought and global effect in today's world. The focus of Jacob's exploration centred around cybernetics and artificial intelligence (AI) in relation to the Law of Accelerating Change and the notion of singularity as describing a point at which human beings become delimited both as a force and as a being.

His main impetus was to investigate the idea of a fundamental paradigm shift, vaster than we have ever known, as having occurred as a result of recent technological advances. But as Jacob and I discussed in class, viewing change as accelerating or decreasing, and ascertaining even the direction of change itself is bound by fractals, that is, where we place our boundary and by what we have delimited to be included within our process of investigation. When we look in minute detail we can interpret data or phenomena in a particularly way, yet focussing on the very same thing at a greater distance we can make an entirely different reading because our boundary has expanded and the amount of data we have included has seemingly increased in some way. It is precisely the notion of the paradigm which can also be read and interpreted in this way as we delimit particular time frames throughout history and perceive them as having occurred in a particular sequence or order. As such, certain events at the expense of others can become marked and prioritised as having mapped reality. Jacob's beta presentation raised a similar concept in relation to false narrative and the variance of measurement procedures but rather with regards to prediction. Jacob and I had previously discussed how delimitation in this way always distorts reality, yet without delimitation we can unlikely formulate any type of reality. Jacob's beta presentation referred to this idea in terms of intelligence, hierarchies and patterns associated with the neocortex of the human brain. Patterns do constrain us in a particular way, but I'm not sure that we can think for very long without them. As such, it would depend upon one's frame of reference and perception of reality as to how and when they interpreted the occurrence of technological singularity, or even whether it will ever occur at all.

Jacob and I further discussed the idea of accelerating change. We discussed how technology and tools have been an integral part of everyday human life since Neanderthal people. Additionally, Mary Shelly wrote about the dangers of technology having gone too far in her incantation of Frankenstein in the early 1800's. But Jacob wanted to investigate in what way technological change has accelerated much more recently in Western science, and if in fact some tipping point has been reached in terms of the cardinal reality of how human beings are placed within the world. Jacob's pitch in week 5 discussed the ideas surrounding this notion of a tipping point in terms of AI and debated whether or not it has likely already occurred. In Jacob's research the debate really seems to be about the effect of AI on existing human intelligence and surmising within this scenario, whether humans are becoming like machines or whether machines are becoming like humans. One wonders at the degree to which such a decision for science to pursue these ideals suits the common good or is made with an awareness of the likely consequences. Yet quite rightly, Jacob questioned the degree to which it is even possible to control this type of technological change, and this inevitability is precisely the point. Regimes of scientific research, power and economics could be said to have become so embedded within Western thought, and global structures for that matter, that this seems to be a process of which we now have little control in halting or reversing. Jacob's beta presentation addressed this very interrelation between technology and economic growth, showing how each feeds into and perpetuates the other.

This discussion about AI in this way also led into a conversation with Jacob about the supposed origin of human intelligence both in terms of its state of being and its definition. We discussed the idea of Hunter Gatherers as probably having thought more in terms of day to day survival and the cycles of nature, but we wondered at the evolution of the vast time and space within which we think of today in terms of the past, present and future. In his beta, Jacob stated that he particularly wanted to focus on the issue of time keeping and I understood this as the construction of global space, for example navigation and mapping in terms of latitude and longitude. As such, human intelligence obviously has the capacity to evolve and adapt into more complex thought over time, but I wonder of the limits to this complexity. I also wonder at this process of evolution in reverse, for example extinction. Jacob discussed the difficulty of artificially replicating human consciousness which led me to wonder where such attributes as emotional intelligence, human desire and even Will would fit within the AI scenario. Do we perceive that these features add to human intelligence or thwart it? As such, would there be an attempt to computise emotions and Will or would such features become redundant, extinct? In this way, does AI add to human intelligence or in fact thwart it? Is AI a lurch forward into the future in terms of progress generally, technological or otherwise, or does AI and singularity in fact mark the beginning of a regression in evolution from a human perspective? Where do we stand in terms of defining progress? I found Jacob's beta slide on evolutionary bottles-necks particularly relevant here.

In widening the debate to include critical analysis of technological singularity, Jacob's beta really created a much larger space for discussion. His critique provided a good counterbalance and seemed to create a discursive space, or distancing of sorts, enabling Jacob to 'observe' his project. As such, his field of vision seemed to expand, which will be invaluable for the essay. Jacob worked on his project really consistently, nearly every week in class he told me about new ideas he had had during the previous week and about the theorists he'd been reading. The project topic was of particular interest to him and he was really invested in the project's outcomes. In many respects both our projects were tackling the same complex issue and asking similar questions but through two different themes.

Project Beta Presentation

Surveillance

Project Beta 

Pitch Re-cap

Sovereign

forms of surveillance (Toby Miller)

Disciplinary

society (Michel Foucault)

'The Society of Control' (Gilles Deleuze)

The light is now on the audience (Jean Baudrillard)

Obfuscation of power (The Matrix movie)

Implications for democracy (Victor Pelevin)

Sovereign Surveillance

Visual

Exemplary

(Foucault & torture in public Sq.)

External

to the individual (walled city)

Physical/empirical world

Premised on global State system, Westphalia

(Toby Miller & Zizi Papacharissi)

Disciplinary Society

Internalised

self surveillance, embodied

Surveilling each other

for the State (morally/ethically/legally)

Panopticon – visual observation overlayed with imagined observation

Discrete sites

of State control eg. School, hospital, barracks, prison

(Michel Foucault)

Surveillance & Hierarchy

Surveillance seen as negative in this domain

Social stratifications relating to surveillance/scrutiny (The surveillant assemblage – Haggerty & Ericson)

McGregor Wise on Individualism, Identity & Mobility (in Seeing through The Truman Show)

Paul Varilio writes about perception & our enslavement to the 'visual field', also inertia

'The Societies of Control'

Gilles Deleuze 'Postscript on the Societies of Control' & 'dividuals'

Jean Baudrillard 'Simulacra & Simulations'

A move from visual to sensory surveillance, peeling back ideology to reveal 'the real'

eg. TOR, The Onion

eg. Julian Assange interview with Google Schmidt & Cohen, complicit with US govt.

Graham & Wood, 'Digitising Surveillance'

Control & The Audience

The audience becomes the product

Ego

 & distraction

Intense

advertising integration

Forming habits of consumption

McGregor Wise (Seeing Through the Truman Show)

Control & The Audience

Benford reading 'The Error of our Ways...' (automation GPS vs. manual)

 

Both can co-exist, awareness of audience

Blast Theory & my seminar questionnaire

 

Rhizomatic Surveillance

'Rhizomes are plants which grow in surface extensions through interconnected vertical root systems'

Expanding 'uses' & linking new combinations

Algorithms

Graham & Wood (Digitising Surveillance)

Levelling hierarchies, no boundaries or centre

Stepping 'outside' our own subjectivity

Haggerty & Ericson, 'The Surveillant Assemblage'

Control & Power

The Matrix movies

How do we define 'reality'?

The 'visual eye' or 'mind's eye' or sense?

Which 'space' is most relevant?

Omon Ra, Victor Pelevin (perception)

Democracy

1648

Peace of Westphalia, Germany

Western imposed & dominated

Discrete 'prime units' (Parsons) of geographical space (countries), sovereignty (nation)

More recently UN, WTO, World Bank etc.

Democracy & Freedom

Is it democratic to have what it means to be free decided and managed for us?

The contradiction of democracy in the global world?

How to define democracy & where is its 'space'? Should this be negotiable through time?

Democracy is tied with our notions of humanity

How would/does this effect our identity?

McGregor Wise, 'Seeing Through the Truman Show'

Question:

Is it surveillance itself which has in fact enabled

us to see that this is a conversation from which

we have previously been excluded?

Blogger & Twitter

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/peregrine5

Blogger:

http://digc302.blogspot.com.au/

Other Theorists

Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri

, 'Empire'

William Burroughs

, 'The Limits of Control'

Bernard Stiegler

, 'Economies of Contribution'

Maurizio Lazzarato

, 'The Making of the Indebted Man' & 'Immaterial Labour'

Also Greg Seigworth

Between Analogue & Digital

If we begin to look more closely at the process of copying between the analogue copy and the digital copy we can evidence some interesting ideas between the two.  With the analogue copy there is always an element of 'detection' or awareness.  The viewer can detect enough similarity to connect the copy to the original and enough difference to know that the copy isn't the original.  Both occur at the same time, or at least in very quick succession.  One would imagine the similarity to be conceived of first, that register of recognition or similarity to the original, and then the difference would possibly become apparent second.  A copy can be conceived of as an attempt by the copier to remain close to or aligned with the original, or alternatively to artfully and creatively stray widely from the original, or anywhere between the two.  The original always holds greater value than the copy, albeit the artful copy that adopts a wide berth from the original holds greater value than the artless attempt at replication.  In this sense, the total amount of overall value between the original and the artful copy, or the original and the artless copy always fluctuates.  This is the analogue world and the world of simulation where difference is transparent.

Meanwhile the digital copy exactly replicates the original, the notion of the copy in the digital world in terms of 'portrayal' is null.  In the digital world a copy represents only a number or amount, and which copy came first, second or last has no relevence, there is no original.  However, the larger the number of copies available, the less value becomes assigned to all the objects or copies.  With each additional copy, an equivalent portion of value is deducted from each previous copy, while the overall or total sum of value across all copies remains constant.  The digital copy is not a simulation because there is no detectable difference apparent, there is no difference apparent period.  The digital copy is a simulacra in the sense that its difference is undetectable, yet it isn't a simulacra because there is actually no difference to detect in the first place.  Looking from the perspective of these poles or end-points really tells us nothing that we don't already know.

So what is the move from simulation to simulacra, what occurs 'between' these two states?  In effect, what occurs 'prior' to these two end-points?  The space between the analogue and digital state is a trip backward through time.  How does 'portrayal' become translated into numbers and how do we move from a state of awareness (the present) to a state of unawareness (the past)?  A move from meaning to numbers would have to appear attractive in terms of simplicity and ease.  It would have to mean that only human 'content' which can become equated numerically becomes valued, all else that is human will eventually wane.  And in order to actively move to an alternate state in which we are less aware, we would have to believe that move to afford us in some way.  We would either have to believe that we are ultimately moving toward greater long term awarenss or to be tempted by something that seems to us more important or attractive than the notion of awareness, at least for the moment.  Perhaps even in our move from simulation to simulacra, the direction of external reality has in fact switched.  Subsequently, in our belief of returning to the real we have in fact moved further from it toward the simulacra (which appears to be the same end-point but has been arrived at via an entirely different means).

Meanwhile, as we inhabit this reversed direction reality, what is occurring in our previous forward moving reality which is now ahead of us in time yet behind us in our reversed journey?  Is that reality simply fading away, now only a shell of a world without habitation?  Does the old reality continue to roll along forwards through time in our absence?  Or is reality only constituted of that which we are present?  Perhaps older generations and elites still reside in the old reality, travelling forward in time while younger generations, or popular culture, move forward into the past in a new reverse travelling reality, moving further from the forward and future travelling reality.  Have we always had two realities operating simultanously but rather travelling together toward the future only a slight distance apart?  Within this space between analogue and digital there seems to have grown a great distance.  Yet the bodies of those in the reversed direction reality still physically inhabit the forward direction reality, but their minds are 'elsewhere'.  Does this explain what the hyperreal is, the presence of a shell and the absence of a content?  Is this the lack of meaning we sense in society now, the absence of content in many?

Has society largely become a reversed shell without content which has been overlaid on top of traditional reality as we know it, like a ghost superimposed over a person?  The shell is the simulacra, the person is the simulation, and the space between the two is the hyperreal, ie. the person who sees both the person and the shell.  The shell cannot see the person, they can only sense it.  The shell can only see simulacra.  This explains how we can experience both a separation or cleavage of reality and a convergence of reality at the same time.  The cleavage explains the split of the shell and content of youth in two separate directions, Google Generation perhaps.  The convergence explains the person or observer who can see both the person and the shell, the before and the after, the separation and the collision.  This is the hyperreal, where time moves in both directions and spaces overlay each other simultaneously.  The shell is blissful in ignorance mostly, but is frustrated by continual suggestions about their lack of content, which is persistent and puzzling.  Meanwhile, 'people' are confused by the volume of information entailed in conceptualising the simultaneity of cleavages and collisions and the dual realities of the hyperreal world they suddenly have found themselves confronted with.  'People' find themselves able to conceptualise infinite spaces evolving continually between these collisions. Everyone inhabiting simulation, like in the past, seemed so much easier for everyone.  In the world of simulation, everyone just invisaged an internal and external reality, the number of realities did not vary or become imposed upon people as they are today.

Now we seem to have two extremes or burdens, those who conceptualise only their own internal reality, and those who find themselves conceptualising all the complexities of the hyperreal.  Those who only see internal reality see only themselves, or their own bodies.  But those who see hyperreal do not only see both their own body and mind, but can also see themselves and others, this is how we can see both inside and outside at the same time.  This also explains how people can be both split within and split 'between' as Deleuze and Guattari discuss in Societies of Control.  As such, society is also split in two; two classes.  Is this the point at which we no longer control capitalism, but rather capitalism controls us?

Words and Meanings

So I've been thinking about Derrida's Under Erasure where the word is split between sign and meaning, and also thinking about how this concept could be applied at a systemic level possibly.  In a linguistic sense, the sign or the word remains but the meaning is called into question.  The notion is that the word is both written and erased at the same time.  But what does this really mean?  We need to use 'the word' in order to communicate what we're talking about but as [ ] (under erasure) signifies that we are resisting the word's agreed meaning in some way.  Yet even in resistance there remains an element of embedding.  For example, just as we resist the meaning of a word when we address it as under erasure we are always initially reminding the reader of that very meaning which we are resisting.  In this respect, prior to any production of a new or replacement meaning we are really reminding the reader twice about the meaning of the word.  Once when we intially mention the word and the second time when we resist its meaning.  Yet there remains a seed of disruption to our previous assumptions.  In future, we question the connection of the word and it's meaning in the particular instance we've experience but also with words and their meanings more generally.  And when 'the word' becomes associated with its 'new' meaning a new word and meaning connection gradually begins to take hold and the previous meaning fades to the background.  It is only when the void is replaced that we can really move beyond both the 'old' and the 'negation of the old'.

Words and language keep a concept alive, but there are instances where one reads between the lines and concepts can form where there is no word to articulate such a concept, or the word exists but its connection to the concept is unknown.  It seems there is a 'world' of free floating words that 'sink' and 'float' in terms of everyday usage, and also a 'world' of free floating concepts or thoughts which emerge and disappear.  Words and meanings swap and change over time, they change their partners, each group may also change its 'volume' or amount.  What's interesting is the neologism which occurs where two words each split and only use a portion of each to form a new word when combined eg. produser.  It is interesting to think about what occurs with regards to meaning here.  Is all the meaning of both previous and individual meanings retained?  This seems to be where negotiation and power come into play.  Perhaps it is a struggle for what meaning is to be included and excluded in the new word.

In everyday language we both reproduce and modify the meanings attached to words.  But then there's the notion of the loss of both the word and the concept.  There was a period where the meaning of 'dialectic' and the word were lost until revived by Hegel and adopted by Marx.  Similarly, Lenin recovered the word and meaning of hegemony which had been lost for over 2000 years.  Obviously, power, struggle and time played a role in both these instances with regards to both their disappearance and resurection.

Not only is there the 'volume' or amount of the denoted and connoted 'groups' as discussed above, there is also the 'volume' or amount of meaning held within the word ie. the power held within the word.  In terms of meaning, a word can be conceived as either laden or barren.  At different times and places, different people place different 'strengths' on particular words.  The words most laden with meaning at any particular point in time would be words associated with a wide and vivid field of connotation, the words which hold the greatest 'volume'.  Volume would be determined by such things as proximity, force, duration and reach.  Words at the face of contestation would be unstable and would become weaker and more watered-down.

Ben Russell, Headmap Manifesto reading

Ben Russell discusses the idea of inside and outside the human body, or the notion of internal and external reality.  He also questions why reality should even be separated in this way?  What he seems to suggest is that the last 30 years in particular of network, computer, drug and electronic media culture have enabled and highlighted like never before, a circuit of learning where internalities have become externally tangible and then re-input as an internality.  Russell explains it thus, 'we are beginning to see agile manifestations of our internal models moving and tangible in front of our eyes...pliable and manipulable...change them and take it back inside.'  Russell seems to distinguish here from alternative circuits where humans internalise or embody external phenomena process this data, then externalise the data in order to produce an altered external reality.  Where this second circuit of external embodiement seems to 'fill' our internal reality, the former circuit seems to empty us but rather fill the external world.

Circuits which focus on how we embody external phenomena would be indicative of Michel Foucault's disciplinary society.  Foucault outlines the process of self surveillance and that of surveilling each other.  Although this process was traditionally the work of the government and police, citizen surveillance marks a freedom that comes with responsibility.  Ultimately, to surveil ourselves reduces the need for regulation, and although we internalise the rules, the act of reproducing those rules 'voluntarily' in effect gives us power.  But were we more free and more in contact with reality within the sovereign model of the walled city?  Can discipline also be looked at as a burden that we carry for the State?

In societies of control, however, discipline becomes the burden without fruit.  Not only do we carry the burden for the State, but also our act of voluntary responsibility in a digital age operates differently to that within previous models.  Rather than assigning us power, disciplined surveillance now turns on us as we become the authors of our own pervasive data mining, marketing, advertising and future surveillance.

Sociology and Digital seem to be telling the same story but from two different 'levels' and subsequently referring to two different 'realities'.  Sociology seems to speak from an epistemological level where reality may be conceptualised as our 'safehouse', a representation of reality, an objective reality outside of us where 'reality' itself is the point of reference.  Digital seems to speak from an ontological level and conceptualises reality as both prior to and after representation, rather in terms of our awareness of objective reality.  Both speak the truth but 'progress' in different ways, both have a different focus and as such, opposing directions, or orientations, through time and space, or what constitutes past, present and future.  Direction is what becomes the variable in all of this, direction is the very thing which is not assumed when we view reality in this way alternately as either objective or subjective, or from the perspective of time or space itself.

But we can't assume this direction to move only along a horizontal plane.  From a God's Eye perspective, Digital sits on the same 'point' in time (reality) but slowly peels away the layers of ideology to recover and expose the truth just for a single moment while time stops and a single snapshot or image is taken at surface level.  Both Sociology and Digital 'move' but Sociology moves horizontally 'through time' from left to right like Western text, while Digital moves down, mining, digging away the dirt through space within a single moment.  But these orientations seem only to be indicative of the perspective of the 'wave', time or horizontal movement.  When viewed from the point of reference of the single point or position (particle), 'space', Sociology seems to turn its back and looks into the past while travelling in reverse (with its back toward the future) and to look somehow toward the past both vertically and deeply.  Meanwhile Digital, from the perspective of the single position or moment where time has stopped, moves forward into the future through the clouds on a broad horizontal plane.  Is this angular momentum, or Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle???  Is this time looking at space and space looking at time?

The question is, I guess, to what extent should people be paternalised and regulated, and to what extent should people be free to make their own choices?  But how can people make their own choices when they have been 'minded' for so long?  This transition cannot occur spontaneously nor immediately, people will need a crutch to bridge this gap for a while.  But what if people become educated of their options over time but actually choose the 'safehouse' option perchance?  Hypothetically, would this still be an option?  Should we be free to choose this option if we wish?  Is it oppressive to disallow people to choose oppression or to try and shield people from such a way of being without their knowledge?  Further still, what of the likelihood of 'equality of opportunity' among all people in this brave new world?  Who will benefit and who will wilt?  Upon what criteria and definition will human value rest?  And how will this effect how we define what it is to be human?

Baudrillard does outline four stages of human change over a period of time.  He maps a gradual reduction of 'reality' which he defines as a movement through time from the past to the present with a layering of continual representation.  But to conceptualise Baudrillard's idea in reverse we need to think of reality in a more static sense, without movement, and to imagine a gradual uncovering of a reality which has been obfuscated within four layers like a geologist or archeologist, rather than like an historian.  In terms of ideology and representation, Baudrillard's idea builds on top of and adds to everything that was previous, whereas a reversal of Baudrillard deconstructs representation and casts the 'excess' aside in order to discover only the 'real'.  TOR operates in this way, peeling back the layers of the onion to expose the truth!  I guess this is what the online news site, The Onion, also refers to.

So the next challenge is to relate all of this to surveillance and the various forms of surveillance over time such as sovereign, disciplinary and control societies.  I want to start thinking about these ideas in terms of power and identity.  I also want to look at how and why the pursuit for privacy can turn to a pursuit for attention.

The Nature of Existence

Solipsism advocates that it is the mind of the individual alone which perceives reality.  Anything that an individual's mind observes and perceives is said to exist and anything outside of this sphere is said to be non-existant.  It is the single individual's mind alone which performs this 'breath of life' because the non-existance of anything unobservered and unperceived applies not only to objects, nature, animals, but also to all other individual's aside from that single individual.

Now this is a feasible arguement, depending upon how you define what 'existence' means and how you frame human beings among all other matter in the universe.  It states that humans alone produce the notion of 'existence'.  Animals may know they exist but don't rationalise it as such.  Why does the human being 'trump' all else when it comes to existence?  Is it because we are aware that we exist, or because we talk about it, or write about it?  And how are human beings any different to all other matter in the universe?  Human beings occupy 'space', although space could also be perceived as matter.  Humans are 'mass', just like an object.  How do we know we are any different to our dog.  Maybe dogs and cats are our masters and look upon us with knowing patience hoping that one day humans will learn how to relax more and how to experience the true joy of life.

Maybe the difference between humans and other 'objects' in the universe is our ability to moralise.  Even if we look at 'space' as matter filled with compounds and elements, 'space' still can't moralise.  I don't think my dog moralises, nor my dining room table, nor a tree.  It seems to be morality which enables humans to be civilised.

Yet Solisism is one of a myriad of variations on perceiving reality from Buddhism to Hinduism to Realism and Idealism within a dialectic that spans the extemes of internality and externality, the individual and the social.  Solipsism resides at one end of the internal and individual, while a Material view of the world tends closer toward the external and the social.  A Material view of reality advocates that an objective reality exists independent of the individual and that individuals 'grasp' this reality.  I can conceive of this way of thinking also.  I don't think that people generally adhere to one way of thinking alone, I think that we perhaps alternate back and forth between internal and external, between ourselves and our surroundings continually reorientating our identity to others.  And perhaps society generally also moves back and forth within a dialectic of private and public as it moves over generations and through time.  In some atomic way does this process also trace the progression of an 'idea' from its inception to its materialisation?

In the more recent past, theory seems to toggle between periods of Realism and periods of Idealism, both set within the 'social'.  Toward the end of the 20th century it seems the individual has fought for its own personal and private domain ie. the individual outside of what we traditionally perceive as social space.  Some refer to this as Modern Idealism or the Third Culture.  Why is the individual trying to escape the social as such in Western society?  The invention and subsequent mainstreaming of the computer and the internet have enabled this.  Have individuals always wanted to behave in this way and now technology has simply provided the means, or are individuals trying to escape the surveillance and research of Sociology.  Or is society trying to escape the paradigmatic imposition of the Enlightenment Project which is again an effort to frame and measure?

Sociology I think has traditionally tried to position itself 'after' time, or after the present at least, in order to observe and measure 'trace' after the event has occurred.  But I think over time this 'effect' of measuring, albeit after the event, has still caused society to embody sociology and to behave in a way which always anticipates being measured in the future - Foucault's disciplinary society.  Yet at the same time, the very technology which has allowed society to resist the 'social' has also led to society becoming literally monitored and measured at every moment on a global scale - Deleuze's society of control.  Is this 'inside' and 'outside' at the same time? The Hammer and Anvil of Alexander the Great?  A War of Position?

Sociological theory attributes this effect to a cleavage between pedagogy and research which occurred over a large period around the middle of the 20th century.  A period where social theory perceived that it had discovered the truth to the mechanics and workings of the universe and thus, in true fundamentalist style, dismissed the need for much further research.  Jean Francios Lyotard wrote about this growing imbalance between teaching and researching as eventually creating a great fissure and disassociation between the social and the individual.  From the perspective of surveillance though, it seems society's current resistance to the social has occurred as a result of too much research, too much measuring.  Logically one wonders at this contradiction.  Yet each could only be half the story, and one could have led to the other.  Yet we experience in current society the effect of both simultaneously, we can evidence a social rejection of the social in one breath, yet in the next we can evidence a social embodiment of the social.  How can this be both at the same time?  Yet if we imagine two separate realities in two time frames travelling simultaneously through time, like an 'object' and then its 'shadow' with an external light, we could imagine that as a result of the lack of research in the former instance having led to a 'rear-end traffic incident' between two separate realities.  Not only a jam, but the two realities have actually merged into one another, perhaps even the rear reality threatens to overtake the former.  In this instance, the social has become aware of this second reality, aware of 'itself'.  Where in the past, the second reality maintained enough distance behind the first that it had remained unnoticed.  This would explain how both too little research and too much research could exist at the same time.  It also explains how we can both reject the social and at the same time embody the social.

Design or Chaos?

So this is an interesting idea, to question whether we have arrived at this particular point in time and space as a result of 'engineering' or as a result of mere 'accident'.  'Engineering' implies a type of conspiracy, an all seeing and all knowing premeditated 'design'.  And it may feel this way at times, like when elite power seems to try and obfuscate its power from the masses.  Not to say that it doesn't, but the question is, to what extent is such a move simply a means of self preservation, just as anyone would strive to protect their interests and try to preserve what they perceive to be their own reality or way of life.  Does anyone really have an all knowing and all seeing perspective of the world?  Maybe just God.  Or are we all just behaving in the way that we've been raised to behave by our families and elders?  Doesn't our behaviour seem rational, normative and justified to each of us for whatever reasons we believe?

Where we find ourselves today I think would be the result of constant struggle over time.  Obviously some would have stronger and louder voices than others, and this would again vary over time.  I guess the manner in which these voices are conveyed would also vary depending upon whether they were directly political or were more indirectly cultural.  But I don't think there's any 'master plan', I think most of us simply carry out the motions of what we have become in the habit of doing.  So really what's gotten us to this current point would be mostly a result of the will of the most powerful as they pursue their seemingly normative daily lives.  Foucault proposes that the claim to truth is inextricably an act of power, a will to form humanity to our worldview, but not in any objective omniscient form.

I'm not sure where the distinction, if any, between the way that we think and our physical bodies actually occurs.  How can a mind survive without a body and vice versa?  Each must impact upon the other. How we think and what we believe effects our body shape, just as physical activity can release endorphins in our body.  Charles Darwin wrote about the 'survival of the fittest' with regards to the animal kingdom and in terms of genetics.  Genetics seems essentially to imply something physical, but I'm not sure that our beliefs and thoughts can't change our physical chemistry or genetic structure over time.  What about if we feel depressed and ingest medication to make us feel happier?  If a large portion of the population did this over generations and ignored the reasons why we felt unhappy to begin with, couldn't these chemicals gradually change our genetic structure?  Could the chemicals be passed on physically through birth?  Could even cultural adaption to this new chemically happy world possibly change emotional mechanisms in our brain structure?

Notwithstanding, I'm not sure either how the idea of the 'fittest' applies to human societies.  Societies around the world today are governed and civilised in some way.  I can imagine weak or sick animals as being killed and eaten by stronger predators while operating essentially under an instinct for survival, but human beings don't often overtly behave in this way, or do we?  We exist within a dialectic of survival and civility, given both are a form of survival, but what enables human civility is our protection of the weak.  We look after those who aren't strong.  But then you wonder if human beings evolved from apes, perhaps our evolution was Darwinian-like to begin with, but what led to the change in our behavior from culling the weak to protecting the weak?  This aspect of our behaviour seems to have evolved the human race, but what is that aspect?  It somehow seems to have made our race strong and resilient over time.  It seems that while we are free of Darwin's 'fittest', we are also in some other way subject to it at the same time.  Perhaps animals are at nature's mercy while humans have managed to use nature to their advantage.  Does this human utilisation of nature and tendency toward civility relate to some sort of evolved knowledge about strength in gene diversification?  Do we maintain the weak to expand our breeding pool?  How could we know about this though without having been subject already to some sort of inbreeding?  It can only logically have been theorised, imagined, it couldn't be empirical.  Plato, Aristotle, Socrates???  Could inbreeding have been detected and some sort of reversal quickly adapted?  Alternatively, some type of random physical genetic switch may have been triggered as a result of changing environmental factors?  Do our emotions involving compassion for the weak derive from this need?

It seems in the animal world of survival that culling the weak results in strength, that is, strong plus strong equals strong.  Are the weak the inbred, or do animals innately know how to avoid inbreeding already?  If knowledge about inbreeding is innate among animals and humans then how do we know such a phenomena even actually exists if we have already been programmed to avoid it?  Is the notion of inbreeding a myth?  Lets assume for a moment that it exists but isn't an innate concept, why is it then within the human and civilised dialectic that strength is found in protecting the weak?  Or are animals both compassionate and caring of their weak just like us but we don't read it in this way?  Or are both animals and humans both within a dialectic but animals are closer to the survival end of the spectrum and humans closer to the civilised side?  Or is compassion just innate?

Too many questions, too many unknowns!  How would it be possible for all of this complexity to fit into a plan and to have had this time and space today conceived of as a goal?  The universe is too complex for anyone to control it in this way.  What is outside of civility is not considered to be human, but it doesn't mean that this aspect of humanity doesn't exist.  Perhaps it is this very aspect of humanity that enables us to be civilised.  Or is it the negation of this aspect that enables civility?  Yet I'd still like a better explanation of what distinguishes us as human and how we came to be as we are.  Is it even possible to know this or are we as we are as a result of some minor and insignificant thing or event?  Or do we want to change the definition and delineation of what it means to be human or what it means to be civilised?

Anthropologist, Napoleon Chagnon, engaged in research with the Yanomamo tribe in the Amazon during the 1970's and 1980's.  What he found was that when the tribe warred amongst themselves (instigated essentially by external interference) they formed two groups and those that sided together were found to be most closely aligned in terms of genetics.  Those who were related somehow sided together.  Of course the whole tribe were related in some way, but the members who were most closely related formed alliances or gravitated toward each other at times of crisis.  Over time, this segregation would lead to a weakening of the gene pool.  Is this how we behave when we feel threatened and must fight for our survival?  Yet logically, this is not how this tribe had always behaved as a result of the fact that it had survived all this time and had previously remained strong.  Did the Yanamamo know to 'mate' with their most distant gene-type within the group in times of peace and to only align with their closest relatives in times of war?  Do we look for genetic 'distance' for the purpose of mating and genetic 'proximity' in times of war?  The former seems to promote the continuation of our group and the latter seems to promote long term demise.  Is it essentially the 'addition' of the former aspect which distinguishes us as human beings??

The Photographic Image

I enjoyed the class led seminars today.  The Generation Y photographic images project was interesting, it reminded me of a Roland Barthes reading I remember doing for a Media, Ethics & Law subject.  The Barthes reading was about how the photographic image is always 'framed' by the photographer.  Even as the photographer tries to capture 'reality' as such, it is always framed in some way.  The photographer chooses what is to be included and discluded, the angle, the light, the emphasis.  The simple fact that this image and not some other image has been chosen to photograph raises the significance of the said subject matter, immediately emphasising it from its banal daily existence thus creating a distortion.  The photographer always looks for something interesting and out of the ordinary within the banal to photograph, or something he/she perceives as 'representing' the real.  At once the representation is more real, then the real is more real.

And what of the subject?  Does the subject have the 'pose' and then the 'non-pose' or the 'real me' portrayal of themselves for the camera?  Then there's the photograph of the completely 'unaware' subject, these photographs meet with privacy issues, but in this instance the unaware subject is 'in' the real while the observer perceives them as unaware.  The camera seems to eternally search for the real, just as our words do.  Any effort to 'capture' the real can only ever be a representation of the real.  To know and accept this aspect of ourselves and to realise that our desires often defy logic is the knowledge which enables us to progress with compassion.  I think this is quite possibly the difference between what is 'seen' as the simulacra and then what enables us to perceive the simulacra as hyperreal.

 

 

So if we look at the combination of the photographer and the photographed subject, we can rationalise two separate levels of distortion from the real in the instances of both the 'posed' image and the 'non-pose'.  In these two instances, both the photographer and the subject contribute to the outcome, but in the case of the unaware subject only the photographer contributes to the production of the message.  Privacy issues at once safeguard the real while also ensure the privacy of the individual, privacy issues keep the two distinct and separate.  On top of all of this, the photograph is yet further 'interpreted' by the viewer, depending upon the manner in which the photograph has been communicated by the 'author' eg. magazine, art gallery etc. and the individual interpretation of the viewer themselves.

 

The unaware subject 'in' the real is powerless within the paradigm of the image and the 'image producer' is in control.  While the poser and the non-poser are a dialectic of transparent and obfuscated aspects of a feigned authenticity, the relationship between the unaware subject and the photographer is a dichotomy of reality and power.  The subject is immersed 'in' reality and yet is powerless to the image, while the photographer can only 'watch' or observe reality yet wields ultimate power in the world of representation.  The unaware observer 'in' the real, however, depends upon the image to capture moments in time, while the photographer depends upon the real to regenerate desire and to fulfill meaning.  Meanwhile, the 'viewer' observes these four positions as he/she gazes upon the 'photograph'.

 

Yet could we also look at the human eye as a lens, an image, a photograph, always 'framing' reality?  In this way, the photographer is always already observing through two lenses and the unaware subject is always already also 'observing' as he/she is observed.  In this way, none of us actually 'sees' reality, we just sense it!  But in order to 'see' or oberserve reality, through our 'minds eye' even, we need to 'step back' so to speak.  So in order to 'experience' reality we need to 'observe' it from a distance.  So how then is the unware subject any different to the photographer observing from the outside?  They must be in different worlds, not the same world.  Each individual is in their own world and perceives themselves to be 'in' reality while at the same time searching for reality.  Our worlds must overlap or interconnect with each other so that we can play a role in the world of others while at the same time others play a role in our world.  So even the unaware subject who is 'in' reality is only 'in' reality from the perspective of the photographer.  But from the subjects own perspective they perceive themselves as observing their own reality from a distance while at the same time they perceive others as imagining themselves 'in' reality.  So we can be both 'inside' and 'outside' at the same time but not from our perspective alone, this is from both our own perspective and from the perspective of how we imagine others to perceive the world.  Is searching for reality then the actual reality ie. reality is the 'search' itself?

 

 





Versions, Directions & Values of Reality

In elaborating Baudrillard's notion of the simulacra, he seems to suggest that the real real supports an objective view of the real?  The direction he plots for the simulacra is that a more objective real existed in the past and that we are now moving toward the real real, or a gradual breakdown of the objective real as we have understood it.  I guess this is what objectivity really is, an agreed paradigm of what is real at the moment as it seems to any subjective self.  This would be saying that the real real is based on a simulacra (of the real of which we are unaware, or of the real which does not actually exist but only appears to exist ie. the 'space' exists but any sense of an objective real doesn't) and the only thing that is real is in effect the simulation, or our awareness of the simulation. So what is real is not real and what is between the real and simulation is real, the space where our awareness of change occurs. In the true spirit of such logic contradiction abounds, combined with a shift sidewards!

But what if we were to imagine the opposite direction of the simulacra?  What if we were moving away from the real real and toward the objective real?  We could imagine that people in the past were living in a dream, or similarly, living in a world where they were less able to make sense of the world in the way that we can today.  From this position, it would seem that we are becoming more aware of our world, more self aware and more progressive as we move forward through time.  It would also indicate that we are moving closer to 'the truth'.  Yet when we consider both an agreement and a critique of Baudrillard in turn in this way, we find that we logically flounder back and forth between the two and then begin to illogically question whether it can be both or neither of these scenarious at the same time.  What is needed is a way of thinking which extends or opens a space for conversation.

One way to move beyond this dilemma would be to consider the value and perception we place on the real real and the objective real in turn.  How we perceive and value each dictates whether we believe we are in fact progressing or regressing within each scenario, whether we are moving forward or backward.  Can the objective real really be real if the person residing in its reality is unaware that it is a construct, albeit maybe a better/the only option to inhabit.  But wouldn't that person have to be aware of this fact in order for that reality really to be real to them?  Doesn't that person have to knowingly choose the objective real as the better option?  If it is chosen for them then it wouldn't seem real, it would seem constructed, forged, and in this instance the real real would likely appear more real.  This step cannot be the result of paternalisation, the actor must knowingly rationalise this process and make this decision.  If this step is eliminated then the appearance of reality inverts or swaps.  Knowing reality it seems, in this sense, comes from a process of doing or 'work'.  We need to be doing or working in order to 'produce' our own reality.  Yes, Marx wrote about 'work' and 'alienation' from our work, and Gramsci wrote about 'movement'.  Yet there is also the option of the simulacra which in effect erases all else it would appear to those held inside, which as we know at once ends the conversation.  But from the outside, the simulacra is logically a world where the real real has come to seem real and the objective real has been lost.

A simple example of this concept might be an updated blog, sometimes blogs are worked on and updated many times. Some blogs make all their updates transparent to the viewer via saved copies and links. Other blogs update and save over the top of previous versions rather than saving drafts before publishing. In this scenario, from the perspective of the viewer, they would have no means of knowing that previous copies have ever existed. This may not seem important, but if in between updates of a blog another website makes reference to a blog which has since been changed, then anomolies and incongruence will occur from the perspective of the viewer. As such, a thread of inquiry will be broken, the viewer will be unable to move forward or backward and the sequence of events will become unfixed. From the perspective of the web, the digital artefact will always exist with a record of time and date, but again, something cannot be accessed by a viewer if the simple fact that it exists is unknown.

This example shows how knowledge, particularly 'linking' knowledge, can become lost.  Initially, within the simulaca, because the process would be cultural and gradual over time, anomalies would be apparent which would create confusion.  People would go to webpages on the internet for example and encouter dead-ends and incongruence which would make no sense, that is, people would be aware that something was awry but wouldn't know any detail or understand why.  Then over time people would just get used to the dead-ends and wouldn't question them, they would just start over and happily begin looking elsewhere.  People wouldn't know that the dead-ends actually meant something, perhaps even more than the actual live trails themselves.  With this idea in mind, Baudrillard gives the example of Disneyland as a distraction to the reality of simulacra in real life.  Baudrillard seems to say that Disneyland is so exaggerated that it makes our unreal real lives seem more real by comparison.  This shows how a reality of 'dead-ends' can become normalised and reality can become shifted or 'recentred'.

So if the process of 'work', that is the process of 'understanding' and of asking and knowing 'why' is removed (leisure society), then we would perceive the real real as having substance and the objective real as being like a cage.  Kant writes about this in the Categorical Imperative with regards to respect and morality.  But what if we were to stand back in this conversation and view history and social theory as having left a trace behind us in a line. What if we viewed the real as being in the the past and there having been a progressive movement over time away from that point through the stages of simulation to simulacra and/or vice versa, either direction?  In this case, there would have to be a beginning and an end, a boundary, possibly the Enlightenment Project?

Obviously, things and life occurred before the inaugration of the Enlightenment but is this project an experiment of sorts, a controlled environment devised to enable measurement? Have we all been inside a glass jar inside a science laboratory for the last few hundred years being monitored? I wonder what changes have occurred under such observation? What has remained constant? Obviously the ability and the means for some of us to rationalise such a concept? And what of the 'Hawthorn Effect'?  What has been the role of Sociology in all of this?  We seem to feel trapped in a cage at one end of the spectrum and at one level, and yet trapped in a science experiment at the other extreme.  The only way to be free to move forward it seems is to allow the objective real to be the real and to engage in the conversation, and in so doing we must each engage in the 'work' required to create our own reality.  Is this the space between 'zombie' and 'complexity'?  Are 'zombie' and 'complexity' two aspects of the same thing, or are they just the same thing??

We can see with this discussion that the real real and objective real are dependent upon one another in order to create a two dimensional space, or a space for reality or meaning or the ability to think and rationalise.  Real real seems to run horizontal and objective real seems to run vertically.  As objective real and simulacra run in either direction through time ie. real to simulacra and/or simulacra to real, in order to operate or move, the process needs to be supported by a layering of the real real and the objective real it would seem.  Likewise, any layering or value placed on either versions of reality must be supported by some sort of movement in either direction.  In this way, this two dimensional space is both created and destroyed within the very same instant, continually changing and modifying.  Likewise, we can see the value in looking at dichotomies on an epistemological level and at dialectics on an ontological level.  The first creates a closed environment and the second an open environment.  When we try to use a dialectic at an epistemological level we encounter a dead-end in nihilism and relativism.  Likewise, we must use the dialectic at the ontological level in order to reveal the potential that this world and this function (ie. the dialectic) has to offer.

As a final note, always it seems when we imagine for the Other, like when we imagine the Other being unaware in the simulacra, the conversation ceases.  It is only when we imagine from our own perspective that the conversation moves.  When we speak for Others its seems, we come to a standstill.  It is only when we speak for ourselves and allow Others to speak for themselves that we can move.

This is all still sketchy, but I'm working on it!!

Detailed Simulacra & Simulations

So what if we imagine the real and the simulacra. Isn't the simulacra the same as the real to the person who is within the simulacra? We imagine that it would have to seem like reality to this person or it simply wouldn't be a simulacra. At this point the conversation ends abruptly, it just becomes a case of circular logic and our ability to see or imagine any further is stopped short. This person is rendered practically powerless, and in maintaining such a relativistic and nihilistic view really serves to benefit those in society who are powerful.

But what if you were an outside observer looking in, how would this situtation look? Between real and what could be termed, simulation, we are aware that something is a copy. We can see enough similarities to connect the copy to the original but also detect differences that show it is not exactly the same as the original. Any simulation of the real would be apparent both whether you observed some phenomena directly or you observed someone else observing that same phenomena. Obviously, each observer wouldn't read the text exactly the same but fundamentally each reading would exhibit similar traits. But the next step would be different. What occurs between simulation and simulacra that is different to what occurs between real and simulation? This is where it gets more complicated. With the step from simulation to simulacra, unlike the step from real to simulation, it makes a difference as to whether you observe directly or you gaze upon, or imagine someone else observing.  In addition, this step is not just a move from one state to another but may also be perceived as a difference in perspective or awareness between two separate identities.

The simulacra is also a simulation of sorts, but rather than just acting as a second simulation against a previous simulation for some, it is also a simulation which for others acts on the individual in terms of perception or awareness.  To the outside observer who is aware, the simulacra looks like a world which is hyperreal or has mutated in some way, a world which is more real than reality itself while at the same time is somehow unreal. There is a component of awareness here held by the viewer in relation to the hyperreals' difference to both the real and the simulation.  Additionally, this observer can view that difference in both positive and negative terms, ie. as hyperreal (more than real) or as unreal (less than real). Whereas the simulation proper both compares and contrasts itself to the real, in what measure or to what percentage I cannot say, its overall effect is considered as inferior to the real, that is, the simulated copy has less value than the original.

On the other hand, as mentioned, the hyperreal is still a simulated effect because we can recognise it as something other than the real, and like the original simulation it makes points of both comparison and contrast, but differs from the initial simulation because it is both inferior and superior to the real at the same time, again remember unreal and hyperreal. What actually occurs then during this second simulation from this hyperreal/unreal perspective? It is not simply a reversal of the initial simulation, it is something different because we have not returned to the real, we have arrived instead at the hyperreal. It would seem that the second simulation splits in two and does two separate things at the same time, like a simultaneous dual simulation. One simulation it seems is produced from within the previous simulation, so this would explain the inferior, unreal, weaker or watered-down aspect of the final hyperreal outcome. This we can imagine as a continuous line travelling in one direction forging the frontiers. This simulation simply travels from the point of the initial single simulation to the point of the hyperreal.

But how would we explain what the second simulation does, how do we end up with a hyperreal rather than an unreal outcome in the hyperreal? Could we say that the second twin simulation, rather than just moving straight to the position of the hyperreal, actually resimulates itself once again against the real (refuelling on reality or morality for the frontier so to speak) in order to produce a new and completely unrelated simulation to the first? We could imagine this perhaps as the second simulation moving backward to the real and repeating the first leg of the journey before completing the same leg as the first twin. Effectively, the second twin has covered around three times the distance of the first in the journey from simulation to hyperreal and travels in an ever widening circle rather than just a line as the frontier expands.  Could we perceive the single leg journey as having occurred in real time and the triple leg as moving much quicker to cover three times the distance in the same time?  Could we also say that the triple leg portion becomes thicker with data having covered three times the distance or would we have to say that this portion is in fact thinner or more incoherent as it has collected the same amount of data as the single leg but rather over a much longer or wider range of available data and data-types?

But how is it then that in the hyperreal we can see both hyperreal and unreal? How is it that we can see both these elements within the same image? Is the second simulation moderately transparent in some way that when layered over the top of the first simulation we can witness elements of both at the same time?  Additionally, the second simulation seems to be posited as the superior and the first simulation as the inferior in this hyperreal scenario? So the second simulation is passified with the apparent glory of being superior yet does all the work! In terms of space, the first twin utilises a smaller space for its work but likewise uses much less energy and is requied to cover much less distance than the second twin. This all seems somewhat reminiscient of Latour's 'Trains of Thought'! How else would we account for the apparent incongruence of the hyperreal and unreal which has been forced to fit within the hyperreal scenario.

Is this the capital machine that Baudrillard speaks of? Is the imperative of the machine to work more efficiently by trying to make the weaker work harder while those who do not work have become spacejunk cast away from earth with no use value, judged to be only dead weight?  Meanwhile, the strong forge ahead at the expense and work of everyone else?

But what about the direct observer who doesn't see hyperreal but is within the simulacra seeing only the real? How would this person see or interpret the transition from simulation to simulacra? This is a change which wouldn't be detected by the direct observer in the same way as the outside observer. This unaware person would be aware that they are no longer in a simulation because such a contrived duplication would be obvious. But this person would assume therefore that they have returned to the real only as a result of the absence of simulation. If that person for example had never actually witnessed the real real and only knew of simulation, then hyperreal would seem more real than simulation. From this perspective, the hyperreal would become the real and simulation would simply move out of view, the notion of a real real not even ever having been conceived.  As such, this person would only see that which represents difference to simulation.  (Thus becoming blind to the similarities with simulation and both the similarities and differences with the real as an outside observer would perceive).  In this sense then, where the unaware observer would perceive only a move away from simulation and assume therefore a move toward the real, the aware observer would perceive the other as having moved only further away from the real.

Furthere, because the unaware observer has never known of a real real the aware observer cannot impose the perspective of any move from simulation to simulacra as being imagined by the unaware observer as a reversal from simulation to the real.  Even though, from the perspective of the aware observer, there is a temptation to do so.  As such, it becomes apparent that there are two types of aware observers?  There are the ones who imagine they look at the Other from the perspective of the Other and those that look at the perspective of the Other simply from their own perspective.  Or perhaps stated as those who are aware and those who think they are aware.  But are those who think they are aware the same as those who are unaware?

This piece is still in BETA form.  I have to really think about all these things, but have to have a wee break from it!