[NetBehaviour] Scientists add emotions to robotic hea

[marc garrett]

Hi Simon,

>Does that make me a post-humanist? I guess to be
>that you have to be a humanist in the first instance ­
>and I know I am not a humanist. I prefer to take a
>non-anthropocentric view of the universe and where
>value may be found.

I have never been keen in accepting humanity as the centre of the
universe, but I do view much of post-humanist thinking as yet another
agency of salvation. What I mean by this is that, for me it seems to
hold similar characteristics of absolutism, as much as any form of
obsessed religion or metaphysical, and untouchable, great theme/scheme
of things. When science becomes a mono-cultural venture in the hands of
those who propose their own Promethean-led, eugenical ideologies.

Even though I am appreciative in the research of academics such as Sue
Blackmore and Daniel Dennett, in proposing that we are all part of a
mass meme machine. Co-relation via the process of imitation of others,
meaning that we are copying machines. And that the notion of the self,
is an illusion. I still wonder how this can inform us beyond the
trappings of yet another situation of fait accompli?

Personally, I cannot help but feel that such concepts rely on a
determinism which supports a more pro post-humanist agenda, as in
anti-humanist. Not as in actively anti-humanist, but as in
unintentionally supporting more darker tomes/agendas which could
threaten our civil liberties. It may (accidentally) be a form of
intellectual nihilism, serving to deny human agency by building
mechanistic frameworks arguing the case that we are nothing but,
disposable entities and data-objects, of mass exploration and production
alone.

It strikes me that it does not necessarily matter whether an agenda
comes from a post-humanist, religious or political proposition, through
all of this, we still submit to uncertainties and swap agency, from an
authority above.

marc