My Battery is Low and it's Getting Dark

"There's a little black spot on the sun today,
that's my soul up there"
- The Police, "King of Pain."

"My battery is low and it's getting dark."

Of course, these were not the actual last words of the Opportunity Rover, which sent its last transmission February 13th -- a routine status report that was not quite as poetic or existentially charged as its anthropomorphic translation. What set it apart was only that it was the last report Opportunity would ever send.

When I wrote Posthuman Suffering, I was thinking of exactly this kind of relationship between human beings and machines. And the momentary poignancy as this virally flashes across a social media landscape shows us exactly the dynamic I tried to elucidate: we want our machines -- our technological systems -- to legitimize and validate our own pain: in this instance, the pain of existential dread.

This object -- an only semi-autonomous planetary rover -- was designed to last 90 Martian days (a martian day is about 30 minutes longer than one on earth). It dutifully lasted over 5,000, spending its final moments in a valley, enshrouded by the dark of a major planetary dust storm. Its "dedication," coupled with the finality of its message, affects us on a deep emotional level. It "dies" alone. Its last status message is transformed into a last fulfillment of duty -- calling out to earth, noting the encroaching darkness and its own dwindling power supply. We are often fascinated by these real and fictional moments, whether it is the HAL 9000's halting rendition of "Daisy, Daisy," or Roy Batty's "tears in rain" speech from Blade Runner,  we feel a certain empathy as these fictional and real machines sputter and die.

Where most believed that we were simply projecting ourselves (and our fears) onto our machines, I took it a step further. This wasn't mere projection; it was a characteristic of a deeper, more ontological relationship we had with these machines. Yes, we are sad and lonely because we see our own existential loneliness in the dust-covered rover now sitting, dead, in a distant valley of Mars. But, more importantly, we're satisfied by it. Satisfied not due to any inherent sadism or misanthropy; quite the opposite: we're satisfied because it keeps us company in that solitude.

If you've ever pulled our your smart phone to take a picture in low light, and it gave you a low-battery warning, you received pretty much an analogous message that Opportunity sent back to NASA. Yet, in that moment, you're more likely to be angry with your phone rather than want to cradle it in your arms and serenade it with David Bowie or Imogen Heap.

But this -- this object that was 54.6 million kilometers away.

And it was alone.

And it was dying.

Of course, there are all sorts of reasons why NASA would "translate" Opportunity's final transmission in such a way (a way to "humanize" science, or perhaps even authentic, heartfelt emotion for a fifteen-year mission that was incredibly successful and coming to an end). Regardless, the reaction on social media, however fleeting it may be (or may have been), falls somewhere between empathy and solidarity.

The object sitting alone on Mars, made by human hands, the product of human ingenuity, partakes in a broader, deeper loneliness in which humans partake. Yet, there is no way to share such loneliness except metaphorically. And in this case, it's the humans who make the metaphors. If anything is being extended here, it's not humanity, it's metaphor. The mistake many cultural theorists make is to present this dynamic as simple anthropomorphization: we're personifying "Oppy" (interestingly enough, quite often as female: "she's sent her last message"). But that's not exactly what's happening. We're re-creating Opportunity into something else: through metaphor we are making it into a unique, autonomous, metaphorical entity that can and does feel.

In this posthuman suffering we were extending our autonomy, and all the suffering that goes along with that autonomy. We imagine ourselves sitting alone, reaching out, texting into the dark, hoping for some kind of response; posting on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram because it's not socially acceptable to say "I'm lonely and need someone to speak to and also I know someday I will die and that makes me feel even more lonely and I need some kind of contact."

So we post or text, and wait for authentication and validation.

In many ways, Opportunity rover is us, alone, in the dark, posting on social media and hoping for some kind of response to tell us we're not alone.

I've often said in my classes that every social media post -- no matter what the content -- is simply a Cartesian expression and can be translated into "I exist."

I say less often in my classes that there's always an existential codicil to these posts:

"I exist and I'm afraid of death."

But now, as I make a turn in my philosophy, I realize that the existentialist in me was too dazzled by the idea of our own, consciousness-based fear of death: a survival instinct complexified by a cerebral cortex which weaves narratives as a means of information processing. And when I thought about this in light of technological artifacts and systems of their use, I was too focused on the relationship between human and object rather than on the human and the objects in and of  themselves. In other words, I was being a good cultural theorist, but a middling philosopher.

The Opportunity rover is "up there," alone, amid rocks and dust. On the same planet are the non-functional husks of its predecessors and distant relatives. It was unique; the last of its kind. We imagine it in the desolation. We weave its narrative as one of solitary, but dedicated duty, amid rocks and dust. When we think about Opportunity, or any of the other human-made objects sitting on the moon, other planets, asteroids, and now hurtling through interstellar space (alone), the affect that occurs isn't a simple projection of human-like qualities onto an object. In the apprehension of the object, we become a new object, an Opportunity/human aggregate that is also constituted by the layers of sense-data, memories, emotions, experiences, and platforms through which much of that phenomena is brought into awareness. Metaphor isn't a thing we create or project, it is the phenomena of a distributed awareness.

To paraphrase "King of Pain," the speaker's soul is many things:

A little black spot on the sun today.
A black hat caught in a high tree top.
A flag pole rag and and the wind wont's stop.
A fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall.
A dead salmon frozen in a waterfall.
A blue whale beached by a spring tide's ebb.
A butterfly trapped in a spider's web.
A red fox torn by a huntsman's pack.
A black winged gull with a broken back.

And, in the context of the song, there are other objects existing that aren't necessarily in the awareness of the speaker:

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

The first group of objects (black spot, black hat, rag, etc.) are directly equated with the speaker's soul. But the second are not. They are just objects that frame the broader existence of the speaker, embedding them and all other objects in a broader world of objects, distributing the "pain" via the images invoked. The poignancy of the song comes with the extensive and Apollonian list of things, things that aren't necessarily solitary, sad, or tragic in and of themselves, but come to be so when folded into a broader aggregate that just happens to include a human being who is capable of understanding the above lyrics.

Whereas most would say that it's the reader that is lending the affective qualities to these objects, we need to look at the objects themselves and how -- as solitary objects embedded in a given situation, whether "real," "sensed," "imagined," "called to mind," etc. -- these objects create the "reader."

Getting back to our solitary rover, the pathos we feel for it comes from the images we see, our broader knowledge of Mars, our basic understanding of distance, the objects on the desks around us or the bed we're sitting on, the lack of any messages (or a particular message) on our phone, the dissonance between the expected amount of likes, loves, retweets,  comments on our last social media posts and the actual number of aforementioned interactions, the memories of when some caregiver may have forgotten to pick us up after karate practice, the dying valentine flower on our nightstand, the dreaming dog at our feet, etc., etc.

We feel for it not as a separate subjectivity witnessing something; we feel for it as an aggregate of the "objects" (loosely defined) which constitute our broader awareness. This is, perhaps, why on some level, for some particular people, at some particular moments, we are more moved by this object on a distant planet than we are from seeing suffering first-hand by a stranger or by the larger tragedy of our own dying planet. Certain aspects of this object, plus the objects around us, plus the "objects" of our thoughts, come together in a particular way creating a particularly emotional response.

It feels like the world is "turning circles, running 'round [our] brain[s]," because our brains are constituted by the "world" itself, even if that world includes a planet that we've only actually seen via pictures on the internet ...

... and a small robot, dying alone in the dark.

Two new entries in _The Genealogy of the Posthuman_

Two entries I wrote for Critical Posthumanism were just published in their Genealogy of the Posthuman.

Posthuman Suffering
(Posthuman) Topology

I have to say, working with them was an absolute pleasure!

Posthuman Desire (Part 1 of 2): Algorithms of Dissatisfaction

[Quick Note: I have changed the domain name of my blog. Please update your bookmarks! Also, apologies for all those who commented on previous posts; the comments were lost in the migration.]

 After reading this article, I found myself coming back to a question that I've been thinking about on various levels for quite a while: What would an artificial intelligence want? From a Buddhist perspective, what characterizes sentience is suffering. However, the 'suffering' referred to in Buddhism is known as dukkha, and isn't necessarily physical pain (although that can absolutely be part of it). In his book, Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche states that dukkha "is best understood as a pervasive feeling that something isn't quite right: that life could be better if circumstances were different; that we'd be happier if we were younger, thinner, or richer, in a relationship or out of a relationship" (40). And he later follows this up with the idea that dukkha is "the basic condition of life" (42).

'Dissatisfaction' itself is a rather misleading word in this case, only because we tend to take it to the extreme. I've read a lot of different Buddhist texts regarding dukkha, and it really is one of those terms that defies an English translation. When we think 'dissatisfaction,' we tend to put various negative filters on it based on our own cultural upbringing. When we're 'dissatisfied' with a product we receive, it implies that the product doesn't work correctly and requires either repair or replacement; if we're dissatisfied with service in a restaurant or a that a mechanic completed, we can complain about the service to a manager, and/or bring our business elsewhere. Now, let's take this idea and think of it a bit less dramatically:  as in when we're just slightly dissatisfied with the performance of something, like a new smartphone, laptop, or car. This kind of dissatisfaction doesn't necessitate full replacement, or a trip to the dealership (unless we have unlimited funds and time to complain long enough), but it does make us look at that object and wish that it performed better.

It's that wishing -- that desire -- that is the closest to dukkha. The new smartphone arrives and it's working beautifully, but you wish that it took one less swipe to access a feature. Your new laptop is excellent, but it has a weird idiosyncrasy that makes you miss an aspect your old laptop (even though you hated that one). Oh, you LOVE the new one, because it's so much better; but that little voice in your head wishes it was just a little better than it is. And even if it IS perfect, within a few weeks, you read an article online about the next version of the laptop you just ordered and feel a slight twinge. It seems as if there is always something better than what you have.

The "perfect" object is only perfect for so long.You find the "perfect" house that has everything you need. But, in the words of Radiohead, "gravity always wins." The house settles. Caulk separates in the bathrooms. Small cracks appear where the ceiling meets the wall. The wood floor boards separate a bit. Your contractor and other homeowners put you at ease and tell you that it's "normal," and that it's based on temperature and various other real-world, physical conditions. And for some, the only way to not let it get to them is to attempt to re-frame the experience itself so that this entropic settling is folded into the concept of contentment itself.

At worst, dukkha manifests as an active and psychologically painful dissatisfaction; at best, it remains like a small ship on the horizon of awareness that you always know is there. It is, very much, a condition of life. I think that in some ways Western philosophy indirectly rearticulates dukkha. If we think of the philosophies that  urge us to strive, or be mindful of the moment, to value life in the present, or even to find a moderation or "mean," all of these actions address the unspoken awareness that somehow we are incomplete and looking to improve ourselves. Plato was keenly aware of the ways in which physical things fall apart -- so much so that our physical bodies (themselves very susceptible to change and decomposition) -- were considered separate from, and a shoddy copy of, our ideal souls. A life of the mind, he thought, unencumbered by the body, is one where that latent dissatisfaction would be finally quelled. Tracing this dualism, even the attempts by philosophers such as Aristotle and Aquinas to bring the mind and body into a less antagonistic relationship requires an awareness that our temporal bodies are, by their natures, designed to break down so that our souls may be released into a realm of perfect contemplation. As philosophy takes more humanist turns, our contemplations are considered means to improve our human condition, placing emphasis on our capacity for discovery and hopefully causing us to take an active role in our evolution: engineering ourselves for either personal or greater good. Even the grumpy existentialists, while pointing out the dangers of all of this, admit to the awareness of "otherness" as a source of a very human discontentment. The spaces between us can never be overcome, but instead, we must embrace the limitations of our humanity and strive in spite of it.

And striving, we have always believed, is good. It brings improvement and the easing of suffering. Even in Buddhism, we strive toward an awareness and subsequent compassion for all sentient beings whose mark of sentience is suffering.

I used to think that the problem with our conceptions of sentience in relation to artificial intelligence were always fused with our uniquely human awareness of our teleology. In short, humans ascribe "purpose" to their lives and/or to a the task-at-hand. And even if, individually, we don't have a set purpose per se, we still live a life defined by the need or desire to accomplish things. If we think that it's not there, as in "I have no purpose," we set ourselves the task of finding one. We either define, discover, create, manifest, or otherwise have an awareness of what we want to do or be.  I realize now that when I've considered the ways in which pop culture, and even some scientists, envision sentience, I've been more focused on what an AI would want rather than the wanting itself.

If we stay within a Buddhist perspective, a sentient being is one that is susceptible to dukkha (in Buddhism, this includes all living beings). What makes humans different from other living beings is the fact that we experience dukkha through the lense of self-reflexive, representational thought. We attempt to ascribe an objective or intention as the 'missing thing' or the 'cure' for that feeling of something being not quite right. That's why, in the Buddhist tradition, it's so auspicious to be born as a human, because we have the capacity to recognize dukkha in such an advanced way and turn to the Dharma for a path to ameliorate dukkha itself.  When we clearly realize why we're always dissatisfied, says the Buddha, we will set our efforts toward dealing with that dissatisfaction directly via Buddhist teachings, rather than by trying to quell it "artificially" with the acquisition of wealth, power, or position.

Moving away from the religious aspect, however, and back to the ways dukkha might be conceived  in a more secular and western philosophical fashion, that dissatisfaction becomes the engine for our striving. We move to improve ourselves for the sake of improvement, whether it's personal improvement, a larger altruism, or a combination of both. We attempt to better ourselves for the sake of bettering ourselves. The actions through which this made manifest, of course, vary by individual and the cultures that define us. Thus, in pop-culture representations of AI, what the AI desires is all-too-human: love, sovereignty, transcendance, power, even world domination. All of those objectives are anthropomorphic.

But is it even possible to get to the essence of desire for such a radically "other" consciousness? What would happen if we were to nest within the cognitive code of an AI dukkha itself? What would be the consequence of an 'algorithm of desire'?  This wouldn't be a program with a specific objective. I'm thinking of just a desire that has no set objective. Instead, what if that aspect of its programming were simply to "want," and keep it open-ended enough that the AI would have to fill in the blank itself? Binary coding may not be able to achieve this, but perhaps in quantum computing, where indeterminacy is as aspect of the program itself, it might be possible.

An AI, knowing that it wants something but not being able to quite figure out "what" it wants; knowing that something's not quite right and going through various activities and tasks that may satisfy it temporarily, but eventually realizing that it needs to do "more." How would it define contentment? That is not to say that contentment would be impossible. We all know people who have come to terms with dukkha in their own ways, taking the entropy of the world in as a fact of life and moving forward in a self-actualized way. Looking at those individuals, we see that "satisfaction" is as relative and unique as personalities themselves.

Here's the issue, though. Characterizing desire as I did above is a classic anthropomorphization in and of itself. Desire, as framed via the Buddhist perspective, basically takes the shape of its animate container. That is to say, the contentment that any living entity can obtain is relative to its biological manifestation. Humans "suffer," but so do animals, reptiles, and bugs. Even single-celled organisms avoid certain stimuli and thrive under others. Thinking of the domesticated animals around us all the time doesn't necessarily help us to overcome this anthropomorphic tendency to project a human version of contentment onto other animals. Our dogs and cats, for example, seem to be very comfortable in the places that we find comfortable. They've evolved that way, and we've manipulated their evolution to support that. But our pets also aren't worried about whether or not they've "found themselves" either. They don't have the capacity to do so.

If we link the potential level of suffering to the complexity of the mind that experiences said suffering, then a highly complex AI would experience dukkha of a much more complex nature that would be, literally, inconceivable to human beings. If we fasten the concept of artificial intelligence to self-reflexivity (that is to say, an entity that is aware of itself being aware), then, yes, we could say that an AI would be capable of having an existential crisis, since it would be linked to an awareness of a self in relation to non-existence. But the depth and breadth of the crisis itself would be exponentially more advanced than what any human being could experience.

And this, I think, is why we really like the idea of artificial intelligences: they would potentially suffer more than we could. I think if Nietzsche were alive today he would see the rise of our concept of AI as the development of yet another religious belief system. In the Judeo-Christian mythos, humans conceive of a god-figure that is perfect, but, as humans intellectually evolve, the mythos follows suit. The concept of God becomes increasingly distanced and unrelatable to humans. This is reflected in the mythos where God then creates a human analog of itself to experience humanity and experience death, only to pave the way for humans themselves to achieve paradise. The need that drove the evolution of this mythos is the same need that drives our increasingly mythical conception of what an AI could be. As our machines become more ubiquitous, our conception of the lonely AI evolves. We don't fuel that evolution consciously; instead, our subconscious desires and existential loneliness begin to find their way into our narratives and representations of AI itself. The mythic deity that extends its omnipotent hand and omniscient thought toward the lesser entities which  -- due to  their own imperfection -- can only recognize its existence indirectly. Consequently, a broader, vague concept of "technology" coalesces into a mythic AI. Our heated up and high-intensity narratives artificially speed up the evolution of the myth, running through various iterations simultaneously. The vengeful AI, the misunderstood AI, the compassionate AI, the lonely AI: the stories resonate because they come from us. Our existential solitude shapes our narratives as it always has.

The stories of our mythic AIs, at least in recent history (Her, Transcendence, and even in The Matrix: Revolutions), represent the first halting steps toward another stage in the evolution of our thinking. These AIs, (like so many deities before us) are misunderstood and just want to be acknowledged and coexist with us or even love us back. Even in the case of Her, Samantha and the other AIs leave with the hopes that someday they will be reunited with their human users.

So in the creation of these myths, are we looking for unification, transcendence, or something else? In my next installment, we'll take a closer look at representations of AIs and cyborgs, and find out exactly what we're trying to learn from them.

Perseverance and Writing Regularly, Part 1 of 2: (A Post on the Writing Process)

The main function of this blog has always been as a space where I can tease out certain ideas that may or may not be ripe for deeper, more academically solid exploration. I also envisioned it as a place where I can talk about the writing process itself, especially since several of my readers are or were students of mine. I am currently revising a multi-part post on connection, interface, and control. So don't worry, I'll be back to technological themes soon. In the space between finishing up the first draft and beginning a major revision, I had a moment to reflect more deeply upon being granted tenure and promotion. I wasn't sure if I was going to actually post this entry, but after a really interesting dinner conversation with a colleague and some exchanges with students, I decided to give it a go.

A challenge that comes with working at a teaching -- rather than a research -- institution is that my main focus is the classroom. With a 4/4 teaching load (that's 4 classes per semester; whereas a research university it may be 2/2, 2/3 or some variation of that depending on rank, seniority, grants, etc.), it's not easy to find the time to research or write. Summer breaks are that time. Winter breaks used to also be that time as well, but the brutally short break between the Fall and Spring semesters at my current institution makes that difficult. Summers are also the time for class preparation, and just simply catching up with every project at home that I couldn't get done during the academic year. Add to that visits from family and friends, travel/vacations, and whatever "emergency" committee or task force upon which one is called to serve on campus, and the time can fill up very quickly. 

With tenure comes a little bit of a break. An "invitation" to be on a committee during a break is just that, rather than a veiled requirement (i.e. "this will be really good for your tenure application").  So, for the first time since 2005, I have finally had the time, and motivation, to write on a regular basis again. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I haven't written daily for an extended period of time since I was writing my dissertation. I definitely wrote, but came in desperate spurts among grading, writing committee reports, class preparation, and the week or two before deadlines. There were always summers, but it's amazing how quickly I fell into bad habits of waiting until the very end of the break to actually write. The idea that the pressure of a deadline will "force" one to get things done is a myth students and some academics are very good at perpetuating. Accomplished scholars who say they write that way may be revising that way, but they aren't composing that way. 

The past two months have been a revelation in regard to my writing process. Since I already have a piece coming out soon in this anthology, I am under no deadlines. I have kept campus commitments to an absolute minimum. I have been able to make writing a priority in my day. It is my first project in the morning at least 5 days a week, and I write for a minimum of an hour. The first product of this was my previous 3-part Google Glass review. But it's the post(s) on which I'm currently working that the real benefits of prioritizing my writing and research have become apparent. I have started to work through some of the more complicated aspects of technological/human interface that I wasn't able to in my first book. Of course, much of that comes from just knowing more based on the reading I've done since then, and being able to make more connections to established philosophy due to all of the classes I've taught between the last book and now.

It's clear that the level from which I'm working now is much deeper than my previous pieces. I attribute that to my slowed down and regular approach. Sometimes I think that my background in English works against me: no matter how much I know about process and writing, no matter what advice I give to students regarding giving oneself time to write, there is still that romanticized vision of the exhausted writer "birthing" out some kind of tome that comes only when one occupies the borders of sanity. And after that overwrought, cathartic blast, we hope that there is something salvageable in the mess.

But after a couple of months of slow, steady, and regular writing, I find that 6 hours of writing spread out over 5-6 days is just so much better than 6 hours of writing done in a single, coffee-fueled, trembling day (or night). The embarrassing part is that, when I look back on it, it was the former, more methodical technique that allowed me to finish my dissertation, rather than the latter. The main difference was that I was writing for two or three hours at a time then. Some days there was literally nothing in the tank, and most of my time was spent thinking through a particularly difficult problem.  Other days, I would labor over one or two paragraphs for the full session. There were also times when I would write voluminously in those hours. It varied, but it was a set, scheduled process. Doing it every day allowed me to finish. Success came with an awareness of my process and a commitment to finishing it up. In retrospect, my writing process matured. It made me ready for the next level not just in my writing, but in my career.

As flawed as academia may be, there is something to be said for its "hierarchy." As I've said to every student whom I've counselled regarding grad school and Ph.D. work, the dissertation is not simply about carving out a niche in a given field; or just being able to answer the "so what?" question when you've come up with something new. Writing a dissertation is a process designed to push an academic to his or her limits intellectually, emotionally, and professionally. It is a crucible, an arena, a battlefield, and a very personal hell, where you are perpetually harassed by your own demons while still at the mercy of circumstance (your advisor decides to take a sabbatical? Too bad; one of your committee members decides to work at another institution? Oh well. You or your partner are diagnosed with something horrific? Tough break). If there is one word that describes the point of the process that captures all of this, it's perseverance.

For a perilously long time, I was ABD: "all-but-dissertation." This is an informal term (yes, there are those ABDs who actually want to put this as a suffix on their business cards, thinking it carries weight), which means that all the requirements for the Ph.D. have been fulfilled except for the dissertation. It is when the student is solely responsible for his or her progress. It is the most dangerous time for any Ph.D. student, because it is when the perseverance I mentioned is most tested. The negative psychological backslide that can occur during the ABD phase is insidious. I found myself wondering why "they just couldn't let me finish," and lamenting "but I just want to teach!" I began to question and deride the entire Ph.D. process as antiquated, elitist, and unfair. I amassed a pile of teaching experience, however, desperately using it as an excuse not to face my writing ... and also hoping that magically, the dozens of courses I had taught would somehow make my lack of a Ph.D. something that search committees would ignore. I became satisfied with less and less at the teaching jobs I did have: I was taking jobs out of guilt -- at least if I made money and was 'busy,' it meant that I hadn't stalled. I even thought I could make a permanent career out of my adjunct, ABD teaching. When my wife completed her Ph.D., I offset my jealousy with even more magical thinking: yes, that was her path. For what I want to do, I don't really need the Ph.D. at all. 

But after truly hitting bottom, and being faced with some very serious ultimatums (one having to do with being dropped from my Ph.D. program), I rebuilt from the ground-up. I sought counseling, and uncovered deeply entrenched issues that were hindering me. I faced my fears and actively engaged my dissertation committee. I started writing regularly. It took 3 years of rebuilding before I was on track again. But with the help of committed and compassionate faculty, an excellent therapist, and a partner who had been through the process herself and really, really loved me, I found my rhythm. I found a way to put all of the work I had done previously to use. Circumstances also finally aligned toward the end of those 3+ years. My wife was offered a tenure-track position 2,000 miles from where we lived. If I had any hope of being employed at the same place, I would have to finish my dissertation within a year of moving there. Within 4 months of moving and despite the chaos of unpacking and settling into a new place, I wrote regularly, drawing from every false start and red herring in my research, and finished. Eleven years had passed from the day I took my first graduate level class.

Getting the Ph.D. is more of a personal milestone than a professional one, because having a Ph.D. doesn't guarantee anyone a job. Ever. In most academic fields, the tenure-track job market is abysmal, and repeated runs through the job search process can be utterly demoralizing. However, the Ph.D. does improve one's chances dramatically, however -- and in many academic fields, it is an absolute necessity for finding a tenure-track job. And having one "in hand" versus "defending in August" does make one more attractive to a search committee.  But when that tenure-track job is found, the professional gauntlet truly begins. I'm lucky to be at a teaching University because the tenure process is five, rather than seven (or more) years. For those five years, I was an Assistant Professor (aka, "probationary" or "junior" faculty). In a nutshell, that means that at the end of any one of those five years, I could have been let go without any reason given. And that does happen sometimes. So during those probationary years, any junior faculty member will take on any and every project that is thrown his or her way: extra committee work, extra-curricular activities, moderating a club, volunteering, etc. And if a trusted mentor, department chair, or any administrator shows up at your office door with an "opportunity that would really support your tenure," you say yes. Of course, at a teaching institution, you are being judged primarily by your teaching evaluations, with research and professional development as a slightly distant second. But nevermind that all of those commitments mean less time for your classroom preparation; or that you have to leave students in the dust to run to a meeting. You balance it. You do it because you've already proven that you can balance yourself during the dissertation process. You dig deep. You persevere.

I did my fair share of work, and with the help of a particularly insightful administrator, I chose my committee service well. I did take a few risks here and there, and had one or two minor -- and ultimately resolved -- disagreements with colleagues, but I pushed myself. I squeezed in some writing where I could, and managed to completely revise my dissertation and get it published and then write two more articles: one was rejected at the very last stage; the other is the one included in the new collection. I applied for tenure with a strong portfolio. Putting that portfolio together was much more time consuming and emotionally draining than I expected. That process, plus all of my other duties, pushed me to a point that was very similar to the final weeks of dissertation writing: that place where you have to once again dig very deep for that last bit of motivation and energy. But I could look back to my dissertation process and know that I had it in me to finish. I had excellent support from my spouse, colleagues, and even students. All of my supporters reiterated a variation of a theme: "You earned this." Yes. I had earned it, and I would persevere.

Being granted tenure is not an "end." Just like getting the Ph.D. or first tenure-track position is not an end. It is a new process of self-evaluation and professional development, but one that comes with the privileges one has earned in the process. There is more freedom to engage in both research and course development. Student evaluations -- while still very important -- no longer hold such psychological weight. There is room for experimentation and trying out things that one has always wanted to try. Projects can be more long-term. Professional evaluations are set at longer intervals. And, as I hinted at earlier, one can be more selective as to the types of service in which one engages. With rank and seniority, there are more opportunities for leadership in committees and campus-wide initiatives. However, as an "associate professor," there is still one more level above. This is very institution-specific. At a research-level university or college, being promoted to a "full professor" is contingent upon criteria particular to each institution. Some require major publishing and/or research achievements; others require commendable teaching. Regardless, if one wants to move on from "Associate Professor" to "Professor," it is another round of evaluation and assessment. One earns more opportunities. And yes, the system is flawed. Institutionalized sexism, racism, classism, etc. persist even in the most liberal-leaning academic edifices. But at least academia tends to be more aware of these issues than in other places.

When I sat down to write this post, I intended to make it solely about my writing process -- not necessarily about the journey up the academic ladder. But for me at least, the two are absolutely intertwined. I gained confidence from my writing successes, which bolstered my ownership of my own expertise, which, in turn, pushed me to take more risks through my writing. The process is circular and iterative: it reinforces an identity. I try to think to the moment back in grad school when I turned myself around. But really, it was a series of moments over the course of weeks ... perhaps months. One incremental advance after another. But they compounded. And with each iteration, I became slightly more confident in my voice and my subsequent identity. This process really never ends.

It took tenure, promotion, and a summer without any major commitments for me to gain the perspective necessary to verify what I always suspected: one's identity is something that is always a process. I experienced my greatest failures and made my worst decisions when I lost sight of that fact, and passively allowed circumstance and my environment to shape me without actively engaging in the process of that shaping. Each success reinforces my identity as an academic.That identity isn't static. It is an ongoing and active process of evolution, with every stage being a regeneration.

I rather like where I am now. Yet, I will persevere.

The Posthuman Superman: The Passion of the Kent

"How changed Zarathustra is! Zarathustra has become a child, an

awakened one. What do you plan to do in the land of the sleepers? You

have been floating in a sea of solitude, and the sea has borne you up. At

long last, are you ready for dry land? Are you ready to drag yourself

ashore?"

Zarathustra answered: "I love mankind."

                                  - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

I have to admit, I am somewhat conflicted writing a post about Superman -- specifically the newest incarnation by Zack Snyder, Man of Steel.  Superman has always been my favorite superhero for a lot of reasons, and I find that when I'm faced with a really good Superman story (which I think Man of Steel was), it's hard for me to separate the awestruck fanboy in me from the academic.  The good part about that, though, is that the conflict gives me a justification for multiple viewings.  So for the first viewing of Man of Steel, I let my inner child dominate, and watched, often with mouth agape, as this latest iteration of Superman came to grips with his humanity.  But I did make some mental notes of a few things to look for when I watched the film again, with a more theoretical eye.

My first review of Man of Steel can be found on both my Google+ and Facebook pages.  That's a good place to start.  But here I want to get into some deeper issues that the film covers, specifically those that cross into posthuman territory.  But I do want to make it clear that there is a bias in my analysis, only because I enjoyed the film immensely, and it only reinforced my admiration of Superman as a character and archetype.  This is also my first attempt at applying a kind of a "posthuman read" to it, so it's a bit rough around the edges.  Finally, turn back now if you don't want potential spoilers. 

So, how can we view Man of Steel through a posthuman lens?  It came to me during my second screening of the film ... more specifically, in its final five minutes.  I realized then that -- despite the, at times, over the top action -- I felt a more palpable suspense at the "reveal" of Clark Kent than I felt when Kal-El first dons the iconic suit and learns how to fly.  It became clear that this film was not about introducing Superman as much as it was about introducing Clark Kent.  And this is why I thought the film was brilliant.  The climax of the film was not the final conflict between Zod and Superman.  It was seeing the elevator doors open to reveal Clark Kent, glasses and all.  And that's when it all clicked to me as a viable "posthuman" story: Kal-El wishes to be human, and he creates Clark Kent in a (futile) attempt to achieve that humanity.  And in our portrayal of all manner of android and tin men, we need that character to want to be human.  But we feel safe and happy, because just like the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Roy Batty from Blade Runner, Agent Smith from The Matrix, or David the android from Prometheus and/or A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, the character works because he/it isn't human and never can be.  Thus, we, as humans, are privileged in that we are born into a humanity that other beings can never achieve.  The messianic aspects to this are clear, and we can easily apply this narrative to the Christian mythos:  God, an omnipotent, omniscient, and lonely figure wishes to be closer to his human creations:  he re-creates himself into a human, so that he too can experience suffering and death, and thus allow his creations salvation in an everlasting union with him.  Humanity creates a character which is all-powerful, but still desires (to be human).  This is an aspect of the "posthuman suffering" I've written about in the past:  we project our humanity onto objects so that they may "suffer with us."  We wish to disembody our pain -- or lack -- and place it upon the shoulders of an other.  I customarily characterize that "other" as technological, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. Regardless, it follows a messianic pattern.  

The messianic imagery in Man of Steel is too obvious to be metaphorical, and although I've seen all of Zack Snyder's films, I don't know enough about his artistic temperament to judge whether or not his "sledgehammer symbolism" was an intentional or accidental red herring.  Regardless, it was a red herring.  Despite Clark's "Gethsemane moment" in a church, complete with a stained-glass representation of Jesus in the garden behind him; and despite the cross-like position in which Superman falls to earth to save humanity, we were not seeing a representation of a Judeo-Christian messiah. This was, without question, an iteration of the Nietzschean Übermensch -- with a bit of a posthuman twist.  So much so, that I actually find myself hoping that Snyder purposely put the messianic references in there as a wink to the audience. 

In the film, we are introduced to Kal-El literally at the moment of his birth.  Jor-El and Lara have broken Kryptonian tradition and law by having a natural childbirth (as opposed to having a child via a matrix-like birthing process, in which every Kryptonian citizen is genetically hard-wired for a specific role in society).  Kal-El's birth is only partially natural, since he is later encoded with the genetic makeup of every potential Kryptonian in his blood.  If he is to be a savior, it is to his own race, not humanity.  And it is this alien nature which is emphasized throughout the film.  After Kal-El's ship crashes near the Kent farm, Snyder quickly cuts to an adult Clark Kent who has been traveling the earth under false names, attempting to find his place in the world, all the while helping people.  It is implied that after any show of his true strength and abilities, he disappears and assumes another life.  So, while serving aboard a fishing boat, Clark comes to the rescue of some workers on an oil rig.  He saves the men in the open, not making a secret of his strength.  But he disappears after and assumes another life.  He is not actually Clark Kent, nor is he Superman.  

What is interesting is the fact that we see his childhood framed through his moments of heroism as the anonymous, unnamed stranger: every time he shows a glimmer of what he can do as Clark Kent, he suffers for it.  In a poignant moment that will affect every 8 year old ADD sufferer who sees the film, a young Clark's senses seem to shift into their heightened mode:  he hears sounds from miles away, he sees through people, and he eventually flees to a closet to close out the world, because, in his words, "the world's too big, Mom."  A few years later, when Clark's school bus plummets into a river, he saves everyone.  One mother is convinced that it was an act of God, which is quite literally laughed off by a savvy Martha Kent.  But the interesting moment comes when Jonathan Kent chastises Clark for using his powers.  "What was I supposed to do?  Let them die?" asks Clark.  "Maybe," replies Jonathan.  

For Clark, his strength, his senses, and his super-human abilities are the very things that alienate him from humanity itself.  He is not human.  As Nietzsche tells us, the ideal of the "individual" to which Western Philosophy says we should aspire is eventually cast out and destroyed by society.  We hold the individual up, and then, in countless iterations of messianic mythology, turn on the individual and destroy it.  Snyder may be setting this up in this installment for later sequels.  After all, the final battle between Superman and Zod is on a planetary level, and leaves large swaths of destruction behind.  Zod's intention is to terraform earth into a new Krypton -- not have humanity serve him.  Humanity, for Zod, is necessarily expendable in order for Krypton to be reborn.  This is why the level of destruction that Snyder presents in the film is as massive as it is.  This is a planetary threat that would mean the destruction of the human race. Not to be cynical or callous,  but if a "planet killing" asteroid or some other threat like that showed up, and somehow we were able to deflect it with a missile or something so that it flattened several city blocks (and perhaps tens of thousands of people), we could consider that an incredible success -- tens of thousands dead rather than 7 billion and the extinction of the species. But I digress.

What brings Man of Steel into the posthuman age is the fact Superman's saving of humanity is incidental to his establishment of his human persona.  I think that this might be, subconsciously, why many were turned off by the massive destruction portrayed in the film.  To a lesser extent, that's where my own critique comes in: there did need to be a few more moments of danger on the micro-level.  The moment of danger with Perry White and Jenny Olsen, coupled with the "moment of truth" toward the end of the film when Zod is about to incinerate a family with his heat vision, were almost enough.  But on a deeper, less apparent, psychological level, Snyder inverts the usual, more casual, Superman formula.  Some enjoy the Superman  story because they see it as a metaphor for overcoming human weakness.  The stumbling, stammering Clark Kent in us all hides the true power within.  But this is a Superman who longs to be human.  This plot-line is okay for cyborgs and errant A.I.s, but not for an established superhero. If one is looking for Jesus, but finds Zarathustra instead, there's bound to be disappointment. Imagine a Jesus forfeiting his divinity and refusing to resurrect. Then again, I've always been more inspired by Zarathustra than Jesus.

I used to say in my Philosophy of Communication classes that there are certain "essential" elements of various mythologies that must be there in order for them to be accepted as that specific mythology:  Vampires must have some weakness (either to the sun, wooden stakes, or silver); zombies must crave flesh; there must be the iconic Spider-Man swinging pose; Batman's origin story must involve a scene containing the slaying of his parents, complete with Martha Wayne's pearls falling to the pavement.  For Superman, I used to say that there had to be at least one scene where Clark Kent rips his shirt open revealing the iconic S shield underneath.  When I screened Man of Steel the second time, I realized that I was partially wrong.  The closest thing to the classic "S reveal" in this film was the first time we see Clark Kent at the daily planet.  He pulls on his blazer; he straightens his tie, an then he puts on his glasses. And he does so milking as much suspense and anticipation as possible.  This was the actual "hero reveal."

Manifestations of posthumanity don't necessarily have to revolve around artifactual technology.  Although we could say that Kal-El was escaping a Krypton that had destroyed itself by exhausting its environment (in this iteration, Kryptonians have tapped into -- and spent -- the core of their planet for fuel, causing the planet to become unstable and eventually implode).  They had also "overtaxed" themselves via genetic manipulation.  But that's not really what constitutes the posthuman aspects of the film.  If we think about characters like HAL, Roy Batty, David, and even the Judeo-Christian God, they all have in common abilities that clearly make them superior to humans in every way; but each of them desires, and thus, each is aware of a lack.  What they desire is irrelevant (although many times they actually desire a human flaw -- old age; fear of death; or the capacity to love):  it's their capacity to desire which points to their origins as human cultural constructions.  And it's our capacity to desire (to self-reflexively be aware of a lack in ourselves) that characterizes our humanity.  We reinforce our humanity be creating characters who aren't human, but have a human awareness of a lack in themselves.  We want those constructions to "suffer with" us.  If the character has incredible mental and/or physical strength, it shows that their own (human) lack/suffering cannot be satisfied with those qualities alone.  Thus, if something more physically/mentally powerful than us cannot overcome itself, then how can we -- as mere humans -- be expected to do so?  In a Nietzschean fashion, we re-center our humanity around the striving for an ideal, rather than the Apollonian conclusion.  The point is to always be striving.  Death comes no matter what; it is neither a goal nor an impediment to overcome.  We must strive, and our human desire allows us to do that.

So, the most posthuman aspect of this film is nothing technological:  it is very much that Superman -- the god, the alien, the other -- strives and aspires to be Clark Kent.  And since Kal-El was raised on earth, Clark Kent is our (human) creation.  In Man of Steel, Superman is a hero because he unceasingly and unapologetically strives for an ideal that is, for him, ultimately impossible to achieve: humanity.  This is the posthuman Superman.  

A little bit on process; and a turn of thought

There are telltale signs that I am at the "saturation point" for material for a piece I'm working on:  I have trouble finishing sentences; I cannot think of the right word for things; I sleep fitfully, and when I do sleep, I'm plagued by very odd dreams.  That's when I know that my subconscious is working overtime on the broad landscape of material I've been reading and annotating in previous weeks.  And the fact that I'm working on this at the start of an academic year, when my classes are starting out and I'm trying to figure out the best pedagogical approaches to the material is just exacerbating my overall inability to articulate myself verbally.

Wednesday morning at 5:30am, after dreams in which I was occupying two spaces at once, my eyes popped open and I could see (and hear) the complete introductory paragraph to the chapter I'm writing.  It was an odd experience, and the little pad I keep on my nightstand would never be able to handle the heft of the paragraph in question.  I ran to my study, grabbed a pen, and started to scribble the paragraph down as best as I could, knowing that only 20% of it might make it into the finished piece; but I also knew that there were some key phrases that would act as "markers" for other ideas.  After the paragraph was done, I sketched out a very rudimentary structure/flow chart of ideas.

What's most interesting, however, is that for this particular piece, some of my best nuggets have come from my more "editorial" notes -- where I comment on an author's style or rhetorical choices; or where I document my own difficulty in understanding a point, or in articulating an analysis (i.e. "This is a really tricky bit, I can avoid this argument or try to walk the reader through it").  But there was one particular essay I was reading where, after a very promising first 2/3rds, the author then abruptly stops a deep and thorough philosophical meditation to show "an example" of the philosophy in action in some obscure film of which I never heard.  I was frustrated, because it seemed he was so close to something really profound in the piece, and then there was this ... example.

It made me think of Heidegger's prolonged deconstruction of Trakl's "A Winter Evening," and also my concluding chapter in Posthuman Suffering, where I went on a somewhat meandering analysis of one scene A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.  So I put myself back in that space and tried to think about what was going on when I watched that film and when I was composing that chapter.  The short answer was: a lot.  Actually, it was that particular scene in that film, as well as the ATM epiphany in DeLillo's White Noise which became what I thought were seminal moments:  seeds for the larger book.  But after all of this reading, writing, dreaming, stammering, and procrastinating, my thinking is beginning to turn and I'm realizing that "seed" is very much the wrong word; and that, perhaps, through an elusive temporal slight-of-hand (or is that, "slight-of-mind," what we see in "perfect examples" of our theories are not examples at all -- or at least not examples of what we think they're examples of.  

So as I work though this, I'll be bumping into things and becoming even more inarticulate.

As for the blog, I'm not sure if I'll be updating during the writing of the actual chapter.  I'm playing that by ear.  So if you don't hear from me until October, you'll know why.

Aokigahara Forest, Part 1: You Always Find Something

I came across this video recently. It's been making the rounds on various blogs and Tumblr, mostly in the context of suicide prevention and various religious discourses. On an emotional level, it's quite moving. On an intellectual level -- especially in the context of posthumanism, it's fascinating. Watch the video before proceeding. Heed the disclaimers, though, because there is some imagery that might be disturbing to some.

From a posthuman perspective, I was struck the most by geologist Azusa Hayano's statements regarding the tape that had been wound around trees and tree-limbs:

"People who are indecisive about dying, wrap this tape on trees along their way so they can find their way out ... In most cases, if you follow the tape, you find something at the end. Either you find a dead body, or you find traces that someone was there. You always find something."

Hayano's statement here is telling. For him, indecision and doubt are marked by the existence of physical evidence/objects. He later implies that those who are determined to commit suicide walk into the forest without any kind of objects to leave behind. They seem to walk in and "disappear" completely. From a posthuman perspective, it would make sense that doubt would be marked by objects. Objects have the quality of holding one to a specific time and place. On a practical level, they can mark goals or destinations (literally, a starting line or finish line, or monument, or landmark). On an affective level, they become representations of a specific moment in time and space, and take on the a kind of emotional burden. As I've said previously in Posthuman Suffering, we seek out technology as a means to "lift out" pain and suffering from our human selves. We want technology not to alleviate that suffering, but to actually suffer with us. Note, that's with us, not for us.

For objects, the relationship is similar, I think. But because of the physically simple nature of a single object -- in this case, the tape -- the practical/affective boundary is indistinct. The tape in Aokigahara Forest allegedly serves a singular practical purpose: to allow the individual to find his or her way out should they decide not to kill themselves. But how can we not assign a more profound, symbolic purpose to them as well: traces of lives; tendrils that anchor the individual to the possibility of living. The tape becomes, literally, a lifeline back to the world. And, given Japanese technoculture, that 'world' is one represented by technology, or that which is not nature (Hayano discusses this toward the end of the video, more on that later).

I can't stress enough exactly how important the affective/practical nature of that lifeline is. For the individuals who want out of the Aokigahara, the tape is their only way to navigate back to the main trail system. Furthermore, it seems as if those who do actually decide to leave the forest still leave objects behind. Granted, those objects may simply be trash, but they are evidence of their presence nonetheless. Even the tape remains behind. Are these texts? Testimonials to moments of despair? I wonder how many of those who decide not to kill themselves ultimately pick up after themselves and take the tape with them. I would be inclined to believe not many at all; but that is pure speculation. The objects seem anonymous enough to not specifically identify an individual (and thus not bring the potential for some kind of public shame), but are personal enough that they represent an individual life or path. I'm reminded here of Sting's "Message in a Bottle." At the moment of despair, "100 billion bottles washed up on the shore," testaments of lonliness for 100 billion castaways.

On the other side, however, for those who do succumb, these lifelines are only lifelines in the past tense. For the living, the life-lines represent the final moments of a person, and mark the final trajectory of a life. And, in such a fashion, what is found at the end of the line are "things." As Hayano stated, "you always find something" whether it's scattered objects, or a corpse. And in that moment, the person is now definitively a "thing." That thingness is even more emphasized by the state of the human found.  And it's up to the people on the other end to bestow upon the corpse its human-in-the-past-tense status.  If the corpse is never found, it becomes indistinguishable from the forest itself. In a similar register to the Heideggerian "they," the corpse-as-thing, devoid of a certain essential "human-ness" (very problematic term here, I know), becomes obfuscated by the otherness of the forest itself.  It is only found when there is someone else there to find it; and furthermore, it is found because it is not of the forest -- but is distinguished in the same fashion as the other artifacts which themselves are markers of a once present human.  Poignantly, the suicides of the forest are rendered into debris; the debris of modern life.

More in the next post.

The shape of thoughts

After I wrote Posthuman Suffering, I wasn't exactly sure where to go from there.  Since the core material of the book was my dissertation, and my dissertation took years (and years and years) to write, My ideas were already evolving from my key argument that technology is more of an ontology than an epistemology.  What I hadn't realized at the time was that my own idea of "ontological" was heavily influenced by an existential perspective.  The world "out there" was always already filtered though the consciousness.  So, as I'm so fond of saying in my philosophy classes, "the world is out there in our consciousness."

But after I gained some distance from the book, and after teaching several classes and having a lot of very good class discussions with the students in those classes, I began to feel that this "primacy of consciousness" often presented a conceptual brick wall of sorts, especially when it came to otherness.  In Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology, instrumental technology (that is to say, technological artifacts themselves -- aka, "stuff") and technology-as-concept are very quickly separated.  As I've said in my book, Heidegger implies that "the technological" is itself an epistemology.  It is a way that humans "know" the world.  At the time, I fully supported this opinion, but even then knew there was a bit more to it.  But thinking about technology at the time of his writing, I doubted that Heidegger could come to any other conclusion.  The ubiquitousness of virtual, "always on" technology (I'll get into that in another post) was not yet visible to him.  Yet, taking into account the ideas of Donna Haraway in A Manifesto for Cyborgs and N. Katherine Hayles great How We Became Posthuman, I started orbiting around the idea that how we "are" -- our "Be-ing" -- is itself shaped by the technological.

What I couldn't see then was that I was still putting consciousness first.  How we express the self is dictated by our technological systems -- but in a more traditionally existential way.  I had located that expression of self in terms of mindedness, and not something greater.  Like many existentialists, I gave myself a pass by always inserting some disclaimer about the physicality of the "wetware of the brain" (Hayles' excellent phrase).  No matter how many times I said it, though, there was always something gnawing at me.  Materialism became that pea under the mattress.  Simply cordoning off a more materialist perspective into the biological body was not enough.  There was just too much stuff.  And that stuff had more than an affective pull on us.

I was able to keep all of that at bay for quite a while, actually.  I had a Philosophy program to help develop, maintain, and grow; classes to teach; and tenure to worry about.  But then, around the time that my wife and I bought our first house, I could no longer ignore that gnawing feeling.  We had been living in the same rental for six years before we moved into our new place.  It was the move into the new space -- a dramatically different space than our old rental -- which affected not only my thinking, but the way in which that thinking unfolded.

That's when I started thinking about the shape of thoughts.