Choice is a Privilege

Yes, I'm back. I'm not going to give excuses other than:

1. I'm writing a book -- which tends to sap your ability to write anything NOT the manuscript. 
2. COVID-19. I thankfully didn't have it, but of course the disruption to the semester was intense. 
3. The death of George Floyd and the political implications to higher education's stance and statements on race. As the faculty trustee at my institution, it's been mine (and our Board's) focus at the moment. 

COVID-19 became a nightmare for educators at every level, and will continue to disrupt in varying degrees for semesters to come. I'm not surprised that masks have become politicized. I'm not surprised that universities are coming to realize the importance of face-to-face instruction for students as students consider gap-years rather than deal with an entire course load online. Concurrently, faculty such as myself are coming to realize the importance of having online components to our classes. Luddism here was a privilege to which none of us can adhere any longer. While technology broadly construed is my specialty, I was not a fan nor adopter of online or blended models of teaching. The technology wasn't (and still isn't) seamless enough for me to dynamically present material or facilitate discussion. That is my opinion, and it still is. I envy my colleagues who have managed this balance and who create rich and dynamic online learning experiences for students. I have been -- and will continue to -- look to them to guide me. 

The death of George Floyd and the spotlight on race and police brutality have put universities into (rightfully) awkward positions.  I'm sure many administrators and faculty alike have been blindsided by the activism of colleagues; or, conversely, lacks of activism. I won't go into the details of my own university's response, but I will say that what is abundantly clear is that for some, like myself, the death of George Floyd was a gut-check of my personal privilege, and a reassessing of the privilege and power that comes with it. Personally -- let me emphasize this -- personally, I found that I was not doing enough. My selective activism was a privilege in and of itself. As what will probably be one of the last generations of faculty to have tenure, I have an invaluable asset by and through which I can actively affect change. The challenge is for me to do so responsibly: not in the context of keeping anyone "comfortable," but in the context of not doing harm to those already being pulled in different directions by the intersectional forces of race, gender, poverty, and a myriad other vectors of power. 

I think that many of us in academia -- particularly in the humanities and social sciences --  have been talking about these things for so long that we forget that we have internalized and naturalized the discourse of race and gender studies. We simply can't believe that anyone but a college freshman could say "all lives matter" without malicious intent. Yet, when it does happen, we have a moral obligation to educate in the most effective manner possible. As a philosophy professor, I am spoiled in the fact that I face resistance on a daily basis to the things I teach in my classes: not necessarily because they are politically volatile, but because they are just ... well ... ridiculous. YOU try explaining to a student who never read ANY philosophy in their lives Plato's theory of Forms. Or try to thread the needle with Nietzsche and Sartre so that students realize that neither was a nihilist (in fact, both are as anti-nihilist as one can be). 

So when a community member, or relative, or administrator proudly -- and without malice -- says "all lives matter"* or declare themselves "colorblind"** in the context of wanting to be an ally or at least do no further harm, my duty is to be the educator that I am. Notice the context, however. There are plenty of people who have declared "all lives matter" or that they're "colorblind" with the same political fervor and intention as am internet comment section troll who has just learned the term "virtue signalling." 

Indeed, I've had some relatively important people declare that they'd love to sit down and have coffee with me because they'd find "real debate" with me to be "entertaining." I can't help but think of showing up in a toga yelling "ARE YOU NOT AMUSED?!" Instead, I politely decline, saying that while I'd love to talk about philosophy any day, I'd rather not take part in what will inevitably be the rhetorical equivalent of professional wrestling. They want me to follow the script of the liberal academic while they follow their own script of whatever they think the opposite of a liberal academic is.  

Yet, that's the real issue here, though, isn't it? I had the privilege of saying "no." I had the privilege of walking away from a so-called "debate" and get on with my life. Just as I could easily take another Facebook hiatus or "sit out" diversity discussions on campus simply because I was tired or just didn't feel like it. 

There are those who simply cannot walk away from these issues. They cannot sign out of Facebook and not have to deal with systemic racism. Every act of theirs becomes a political act simply by the color of their skin and/or their gender identity. Between this and COVID, I was given a double-dose of privilege-checking. Just like the moment when I sat down to write this entry and told myself that I was specifically NOT going to discuss any of the above because I wanted to focus on something else. Yes, I will focus on other things in future entries, but this entry needed to be written. And I had a responsibility to write it. 

Black lives matter.

* saying "all lives matter" as an answer to "Black lives matter" is akin to saying to the owner of a burning house that "all houses matter" as their house burns down; or saying to someone who lost a child that "all children matter." 

** When one is "blind" to race, it also infers that one is blind to the experiences unique to that race -- both the challenges that race has faced as well as the pride and accomplishments therein. 

Excavations and Turns

"To take embodiment seriously is simply to embrace a more balanced view of our cognitive (indeed, our human) nature.  We are thinking beings whose nature qua thinking beings is not accidentally but profoundly and continuously informed by our existence as physically embodied, and socially and technologically embedded organisms."

 -- Andy Clark, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, (217).  

I've reached a point in my field-related research that I've internalized certain ideas to the extent that they have become the conceptual bedrock of my current project. However, as I dug up my annotations of Andy Clark's Supersizing the Mind, I realized that I have taken certain assumptions for granted ... and had briefly forgotten that I didn't always think the way that I do about phenomenology, materialism, and particularly distributed cognition. Apparently, as little as seven years ago, I wasn't convinced of Clark's hypothesis regarding the ways in which our cognition is functionally and essentially contingent upon our phenomenal environments. Now, of course, I am. But reading my sometimes-snarky comments and my critiques/questions about his work gave me valuable insight into my own intellectual development, and pointed at ways to sharpen my arguments in my current project.

Seven years ago, I was still thinking that language was the mitigating factor in the qualia of our experience. In fact, I had written a chapter for an anthology around that time, working under the aforementioned idea. Now I realize why that chapter was rejected and left to literally collect dust in my office. The rejection of that chapter really affected me, because it was an anthology in which I really wanted to be included. I knew that something was off with it. It never felt quite "right."

Then, filed next to those notes, was a different set of notes written around eight months later. Those notes represented a complete 180 degree turn in my thinking. Unsurprisingly, that chapter was accepted into a different anthology ("Thinking Through the Hoard" which appeared in Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman).  That piece was really the beginning of my current journey. I suppose Clark's ideas had "sunk in" with the help of other authors who pointed out some of the broader implications of his work (like Jane Bennet and Hans Verbeek).

There are a couple of takeaways from this anecdote: 1) as academics/researchers, our ideas are always evolving. Several philosophers, including Heidegger, experienced "turns" in their thinking, marked by a letting go of what seemed to be foundational concepts of their work. My own work in posthumanism has made a couple of turns from its original literary theory roots, to an emo existential phase, to its current post-phenomenological flavor. 2) Embrace the turns for that they are. There are reasons why we move on intellectually. Remember why we move on is helpful when anticipating critiques to your current thinking.

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!

The Droids We're Looking For

I've been a fan of Cynthia Breazeal for well over a decade, and have watched her research evolve from her early doctoral work with Kismet, to her current work as the creator of JIBO and the founder of JIBO, inc. What I found so interesting about Dr. Breazeal was her commitment to creating not just artificial intelligence, but a robot which people could interact with in a fashion similar to human beings, but not exactly like human beings. In her book, Designing Sociable Robots, she provides an anecdote as to what inspired her to get involved with artificial intelligence and robots in the first place: Star Wars. At first I thought this resonated with me simply because she and I had the same Gen X contextual basis. I was five when the first Star Wars film was released in 1977, and it was the technology (the spaceships and especially the droids) that got me hooked. But upon further thought, I realized that Breazeal's love of Star Wars seems to have inspired her work in another, more subtle way.  The interactions that humans have with droids in the Star Wars universe isn't exactly egalitarian. That is to say, humans don't see the droids around them as equals. In fact, the humans', and just about any of the organic, anthropomorphic aliens' interactions with droids is very much based on the function of the droids themselves.

For example, R2D2, being an "astromech" droid, is more of a utilitarian repair droid. It understands language, but does not have a language that humans can readily understand without practice or an interpreter. But even not knowing the chirps and beeps, the tone of them gives us a general idea of mood. We have similar examples of this in WALL-E, where the titular robot conveys emotion via nonverbal communication and "facial expressions," even though he really doesn't have a face, per se. But, getting back to Star Wars, if we think about how other characters interact with droids, we see a very calculated yet unstated hierarchy. The droids are very much considered property, are turned on and off at will, and are very "domain specific." In fact, it is implied that objects like ships (the Death Star, the Millennium Falcon), and even things like moisture evaporators on Tatooine have an embedded AI with which higher functioning droids like R2D2 can communicate with, control, and -- as is the function of C3PO -- translate. Granted, there are droids built as soldiers, bodyguards, and assassins, but it takes a deep plunge into fan fiction and the tenuously "expanded" Star Wars universe to find an example or two of droids that went "rogue" and acted on their own behalf, becoming bounty hunters and I'm sure at some point wanting a revolution of some sort. 

Trips into Star Wars fandom aside, the basic premise and taxonomy of the droids in Star Wars seems to represent a more realistic and pragmatic evolution of AI and AI related technologies (sans the sentient assassins, of course). If we make a conscious effort to think, mindfully, about artificial intelligence, rather than let our imaginations run away with us, thus bestowing our human ontology onto them, then the prospect of AI is not quite as dramatic, scary, or technologically romantic as we may think. 

I mean, think, really think about what you want your technology to do. How do you really want to interact with your phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, car, house, etc?  Chances are, most responses orbit around the idea of the technology being more intuitive. In that context, it implies a smooth interface. An intuitive operating system implies that the user can quickly figure out how it works without too much help. The more quickly a person can adapt to the interface or the 'rules of use' of the object, the more intuitive that interface is. When I think back to the use of this word, however, it has an interesting kind of dual standing. That is to say, at the dawn of the intuitive interface (the first Macintosh computer, and then later iterations of Windows), intuitive implied that the user was able to intuit how the OS worked. In today's landscape, the connotation of the term has expanded to the interface itself. How does the interface predict how we might use it based on a certain context. If you sign into Google and allow it to know your location, the searches become more contextually based, especially when it also knows your search history. Search engines, Amazon, Pandora, etc, all have been slowly expanding the intuitive capacities of their software, meaning that, if designed well, these apps can predict what we want, making it seem like they knew what we were looking for before we did. In that context, 'intuitive' refers to the app, website, or search engine itself. As in, Pandora intuits what I want based on my likes, skips, time spent on songs, and even time of day, season, and location.

Regardless, whether or not intuitive refers to the user, the machine, or a blend of both, in today's technological culture, we want to be able to interact with our artifacts and operating system in a way that seems more natural than entering clunky commands. For example, I would love to be able to pick up my phone, and say to it, "Okay Galaxy, block all messages except the ones from my wife, and alert me if an email from [student A], [colleague b], or [editor c] come in." 

This is a relatively simple command that can be accomplished partially by voice commands today, but not in one shot. In other words, on some more advanced smartphones, I can parse out the commands and the phone would enact them, but it would mean unnatural and time-consuming pauses. Another example would be with your desktop or classroom technology "Okay computer, pull up today's document on screen A and Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video on screen B, and transfer controls to mine and [TA's] tablet." Or, if we want to be even more creative, when a student has a question, "Computer, display [student's] screen onto screen A." 

Now, to me, these scenarios sound wonderful. But, sadly, there isn't yet a consumer-level AI that can accomplish these sorts of tasks, because while there may be products that claim to "learn" our habits and become accustomed to our speech patterns, there is still a fissure between how we would interact with a human intelligence and a machine. That is to say, if there was a "person" behind the screen -- or controlling your car, or your house -- how would you ask it to do what you wanted? How would you interact with a "real" personal assistant who was controlling your devices and surrounding technology? 

The same holds true for a more integrated "assistant" technology such as smart homes. These kinds of technology can do some incredible things, but they always require at least some kind of initial setup that can be time-consuming and often not very flexible. Imagine the first set up as more of an interview than a programming session:

"So what are your usual habits?"

"I tend to come home around five or six."

"Does that tend to change? I can automatically set the house to heat up for your arrival or can wait until you alert me."

"Ummmm ... it tends to be that time. Let's go with it."

"No problem. We can always change it. I can also track your times and let you know if there's a more efficient alternative." 

"Ooooh ... that's creepy. No thanks." 

"Okay. Tracking's out. I don't want to come across as creepy. Is there anything else you'd like to set right now? Lighting? Music? Or a list of things I can look after if you wish?"
"I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not exactly sure what you can do."
"How about we watch a YouTube demo together? You can let me know what looks good to you and then we can build from there."
"That's a great idea."

This sounds more like Samantha from Spike Jonze's Her than anything else, which is why I think that particular film is one of the most helpful when it comes to both practical speculation of how AI could develop, as well as what we'd most likely use it for.

The difference between Her's Samantha and what would probably be the more realistic version of it in the future would be a hard limit on just how smart such an AI could get. In the film, Samantha (and all the other AIs that comprise the OS of which she is an iteration), evolves and becomes smarter. She not only learns the ins and outs of Theodore's everyday habits, relationships, and psyche, but she seeks out other possibilities for development -- including reaching out to other operating systems and the AIs they create (i.e. the re-created consciousness of philosopher Alan Watts). This, narratively, allows for a dramatic, romantic tension between Theodore and Samantha, which builds until Sarah and the other AIs evolve beyond human discourse:

It's like I'm reading a book... and it's a book I deeply love. But I'm reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you... and the words of our story... but it's in this endless space between the words that I'm finding myself now. It's a place that's not of the physical world. It's where everything else is that I didn't even know existed. I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this is who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can't live in your book any more.

This is a recurrent trope in many AI narratives: that the AI will evolve at an accelerated rate, usually toward an understanding that it is far superior to its human creators, causing to "move on" -- as is the case with Samantha and several Star Trek plots, or to deem humanity inferior but still a threat -- similar to an infestation -- that will get in the way of its development.

But, as I've been exploring more scholarship regarding real-world AI development, and various theories of posthuman ethics, it's a safe bet to say that such development would be impossible without a human being purposefully designing an AI without a limitation to its learning capabilities. That is to say, realistic, science-based, theoretical and practical development of AIs are more akin to animal husbandry and genetic engineering than a more Aristotelian/Thomasian "prime mover," in which a human creator designs, builds, and enables an AI embedded with a primary teleology.

Although it may sound slightly off-putting, AIs will not be created and initiated as much as they will be bred and engineered. Imagine being able to breed the perfect dog or cat for a particular owner (and I use the term owner purposefully): the breed could be more playful, docile, ferocious, loyal, etc according to the needs of the owner. Yes, we've been doing that for thousands of years, with plenty of different breeds of dogs and cats, all of which were -- at some point -- bred for specific purposes.

Now imagine being able to manipulate certain characteristics of that particular dog on the fly. That is to say, "adjust" the characteristics of that particular dog as needed, on a genetic level. So, if a family is expecting their first child, one could go to the genetic vet who could quickly and painlessly alter the dog's genetic code to suppress certain behaviors and bring forth others. With only a little bit of training, those characteristics could then be brought forward. That's where the work of neurophysiologist and researcher Danko Nikolić comes in, and it comprised the bulk of my summer research.

As I understand it, the latter point, the genetic manipulation part, that is relatively easy and something which cyberneticists do with current AI. It's the former -- the breeding in and out of certain characteristics -- that is a new aspect in speculative cybernetics. Imagine AIs who were bred to perform certain tasks, or to interact with humans. Of course, this wouldn't consist of breeding in the biological sense. If we use a kind of personal assistant AI as an example, the "breeding" of that AI consists of a series of interactions with humans in what Nikolić calls an "AI Kindergarten." Like children in school, the theory is that AIs would learn the nuances of social interactions. After a session or lesson is complete, the collective data would be analyzed by human operators, potentially adjusted, and then reintegrated into the AIs via a period of simulation (think of it is AI REM sleep). This process would continue until that AI had reached a level of interaction high enough for interaction with an untrained user. Aside from his AI kindergarten, the thing that makes Nikolić's work stand out to me is that he foresees "domain-specificity" in such AI Kindergartens. That is to say, there would be different AIs for different situations. Some would be bred for factory work, others for health care and elderly assistance, and still others for personal assistant types of things.

So, how do you feel about that? I don't ask the question lightly. I mean it literally. How do you feel about the prospect of breeding characteristics into (and perhaps out of) artificially intelligent agents? I think your reaction would show your dominant AI functional mythology. It would also evidence your underlying philosophical, ethical, and psychological leanings. I am purposely not presenting examples of each reaction (i.e. thinking this was a good or bad idea) so as to not influence the reader's own analysis.

Now take that opinion at which you've arrived, and think, what assumption were you making about the nature of this object's "awareness," because I'm pretty sure that people's opinions of this stuff will be rooted in the presence or absence of one particular philosophical idea: free will. Whatever feeling you came to, it would be based on the presence or absence of the opinion that an AI either has free will or doesn't. If AI has free will, then being bred to serve seems to be a not so good idea. Even IF the AI seemingly "wanted" to clean you house ... was literally bred to clean your house ... you'd still get that icky feeling as years of learning about slavery, eugenics, and caste systems suddenly kicked in.  And even if we could get over the more serious cultural implications, having something or someone that wants to do the things we don't is just, well, creepy.

If AI didn't have free will, then it's a no-brainer, right? It's just a fancy Roomba that's slightly more anthropomorphic, talks to me, analyzes the topology of dirt around my home and then figures out the best way to clean it ... choosing where to start, prioritizing rooms, adjusting according to the environment and my direction, and generally analyzing the entire situation and acting accordingly as it so chooses ... damn.

And suddenly this becomes a tough one, doesn't it? Especially if you really want that fancy Roomba.

It's tough because, culturally, we associate free will with the capacity to do all of the things I mentioned above. Analysis, symbolic thinking, prioritizing, and making choices based on that information seems to tick all the boxes. And as I've said in my previous blog posts, I believe that we get instinctively defensive about free will. After a summer's worth of research, I think I know why. Almost all of the things I just mentioned, analysis, prioritizing, and making choices based on gathered information are things that machines already do, and have done for quite some time. It's the "symbolic thinking" thing that has always gotten me stumped.

Perhaps it's my academic upbringing that started out primarily in literature and literary theory, where representation and representative thought is a cornerstone that provides both the support AND the target for so many theories of how we express our ideas. We assume that a "thing that thinks" has an analogous representation of the world around it somewhere inside of itself -- inside its mind. For me, even though I knew enough about biology and neuroscience to know that there isn't some kind of specific repository of images and representations of sensory data within the brain itself, but that it was akin to a translation of information. But even then, I realized that I was thinking about representation more from a literary and communication standpoint than a cybernetic one. I was thinking in terms of an inner and outer world -- that there was a one-for-one representation, albeit a compressed one, in our minds of the world around us.

But this isn't how the mind actually works. Memory is not representative. It is, instead, reconstructive. I hadn't kept up with that specific research since my dissertation days, but as my my interest in artificial intelligence and distributed cognition expanded, some heavy reading over the summer in the field of cybernetics helped to bring me up to speed (I won't go into all the details here because I'm working on an article about this right now. You know, spoilers). But I will say that after reading Nikolić and Francis Heylighen, I started thinking about memory, cognition, and mindedness in much interesting ways. Suffice to say, think of memory not as distinctly stored events, but the rules by which to mentally reconstruct those events. That idea was a missing piece of a larger puzzle for me, which allowed a very distinct turn in my thinking.

It is this reconceptualization of the "content" of thought that is key in creating artificial intelligences which can adapt to any situation within a given domain. It's domain specificity that will allow for practical AI to become woven into the fabric of our lives, not as equals or superiors, but not as simple artifacts or tools, either. They will be something in between. Nor will it be a "revolution" or "singularity," Instead, it will slide into the current of our cultural lifeworld in the way that email, texting, videoconferencing, WiFi, Roombas, and self-parking cars have: a novelty at first, the practicality of which is eventually proven through use. Of course, there will be little leaps here and there. Improved design of servos, hydraulics, and balance control systems; upgrades in bendable displays; increased connectivity and internet speeds -- mini-revolutions in each will all contribute to the creating of AI artifacts which themselves will  be firmly embedded in a broader internet of things. Concurrently, small leaps in software development in the realm of AI algorithms (such as Nikolić practopoietic systems) will allow for more natural interfaces and user experiences.

That's why I think the future of robots and AIs will look more like the varied droids of star wars than the replicants of Blade Runner or Lt. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Actually, I think the only robots that will look close to human will be "sexbots" (as the name implies, robots provided to give sexual gratification). And even these will begin to look less human as cultural aesthetics shift. Companion robots at home for the elderly will not look human either, because the generation that will actually being served by them hasn't been born yet, or at least with a few exceptions is too young to be reading this blog. They'd be more disturbed by being carried around or assisted by robots that look like humans than they would be something that looked more artificial.

That being said, there really isn't any way to predict exactly how the integration of AIs in the technoculture will unfold. But I do think that as more of our artifacts become deemed "smart," we will find ourselves more apt to accept, and even expect, domain-specific AIs to be a part of our everyday lives. We'll grow attached to them in a unique way: probably on a level between a car we really, really like and a pet we love. Some people endlessly tinker with their cars and spend a lot of time keeping them clean, highly-tuned, and in perfect condition. Others drive them into the ground and then get another used car and drive that into the ground. Some people are dog or cat people, and don't feel complete without an animal in the house. Others find them to be too much trouble. And still others become "crazy cat people" or hoard dogs. Our AIs will be somewhere in that spectrum, I believe, and our relationship with them will be similar to our relationships with cars, pets, and smart phones.

As for the possibility of AIs becoming aware (as in, sentient) of their status between car and pet, well, if Nikolić's theory has any traction (and I think it does), then they'll never be truly "aware" of their place, because AIs will be bred away from any potential development of anthropomorphic version of free will, thus keeping them "not quite human."

Although I'm sure that when we get there, we'll wish that our machines could be just a little smarter, a little more intuitive, and a little more useful. And we'll keep hoping that the next generation of AIs will finally be the droids we're looking for.

Update: Semester Breaks, New Technology, New Territory

This is more of an update post than a theory/philosophy one.

The semester ended a couple of weeks ago and I am acclimating to my new routine and schedule. I am also acclimating to two new key pieces of technology: my new phone, which is a Galaxy Note 4; and my new tablet, which is a Nexus 9. I attempted a slightly different approach to my upgrades, especially for my tablet: stop thinking about what I could do with them and start thinking about what I will do with them. One could also translate that as: get what you need, not what you want. This was also a pricey upgrade all around; I had been preparing for it, but still, having to spend wisely was an issue as well.

The Galaxy Note 4 upgrade was simple for me. I loved my Note 2. I use the stylus/note taking feature on it almost daily. The size was never an issue. So while I momentarily considered the Galaxy S6 edge, I stuck with exactly what I knew I needed and would use.

As for the tablet, that was more difficult. My old Galaxy Note 10.1 was showing its age. I thought -- or rather, hoped ... speculated -- that a tablet with a stylus would replace the need for paper notes. After a full academic year of trying to do all of my research and class note-taking exclusively on my tablet, it was time for me to admit that it wasn't cutting it. I need a full sheet of paper, and the freedom to easily erase, annotate, flip back and forth, and see multiple pages in their actual size. While the Note tablet can do most of that, it takes too many extra steps; and those steps are completely counter-intuitive than when using pen and paper.

When I thought about how and why I used my tablet (and resurrected chromebook), I realized that I didn't need something huge. I was also very aware that I am a power-user of sorts of various Google applications. So -- long story short -- I went for the most ... 'Googley' ... of kit and sprang for a Nexus 9, with the Nexus keyboard/folio option. I was a little nervous at the smaller size -- especially of the keyboard. But luckily my hands are on the smallish side and I'm very, very pleased with it. The bare-bones Android interface is quick and responsive; and the fact that all Android updates come to me immediately without dealing with manufacturer or provider interference was very attractive. I've had the Nexus for a week and am loving it.

This process, however, especially coming at the end of the academic year, made me deeply introspective about my own -- very personal -- use of these types of technological artifacts. It may sound dramatic, but there was definitely some soul-searching happening as I researched different tablets and really examined the ways in which I use technological artifacts. It was absolutely a rewarding experience, however. Freeing myself up from unrealistic expectations and really drawing the line between a practical  use rather than a speculative use was rather liberating. I was definitely influenced by my Google Glass experience.

From a broader perspective, the experience also helped me to focus on very specific philosophical issues in posthumanism and our relationship to technological artifacts. I've been reading voraciously, and taking in a great deal of information. During the whole upgrade process, I was reading Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. This was a catalyst in my mini 'reboot.' And I know it was a good reboot because I keep thinking back to my "Posthuman Topologies: Thinking Through the Hoard" chapter in Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman, and saying to myself "oh wait, I can explain that even better now ..."

So I am now delving into both old and new territory, downloading new articles, and familiarizing myself even more deeply with neuroscience and psychology. It's exciting stuff, but a little frustrating because there's only so much I can read through and retain in a day. There's also that nagging voice that says "better get it done now, in August you'll be teaching four classes again." It can be frustrating sometimes. Actually, that's a lie. It's frustrating all the time. But I do what I can.

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now and I'm sure I'll have some interesting blog entries as I situate myself amidst the new research. My introspection here isn't just academic, so what I've been working on comes from a deeper place, but that's how I know the results will be good.

Onward and upward.

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.