technoculture203-09

Luke has mentioned a couple of philosophers in class, and as we discussed questions around cyborgs and technobodies Nietzsche and his ubermensch came up in response to Max More's claims to the benefits of the cyborg. While this is a slight misreading of Nietzsche another philosopher came to mind, staunch libertarian Robert Nozick. Nozick was troubled by the concept of utility, or the highest good to the highest number of people, fearing that if that was our only concern, hedonism would be the likely result. He came up with the concept of the Experience Machine as a thought experiment, which is interesting if the patents by Microsoft and Sony for mind interfaces ever come to anything. Unusually I agree with Nozick on this (there are substantive flaws to his overall argument), but there must surely be more to our identity, off or on line, than the pursuit of pleasure. The question remains though; how many people, if the technology was available, would willingly agree to plug themselves into such a machine, and to what extent, with the advent of SNS and gaming are we doing this already? I do get the sense that some online communities and environments don't just mediate an expansion of our identities, rather they are an environment that many people flee to because the off line world can be so demanding. More's enthusiasm for moving on from god's, faith and our frailties is one point of view, but these are difficult things to overcome, people have been trying for centuries. But rather than a brave new world of post humanism, are we simply creating a timid new world to run to?