How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics | 
 enlarge | Author: N. Katherine Hayles
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 181564
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 364
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0226321460
Dewey Decimal Number: 003.5
EAN: 9780226321462
ASIN: 0226321460
Publication Date: February 15, 1999
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
The title of this scholarly yet remarkably accessible slice of contemporary cultural history has a whiff of paradox about it: what can it mean, exactly, to say that we humans have become something other than human? The answer, Katherine Hayles explains, lies not in ourselves but in our tools. Ever since the invention of electronic computers five decades ago, these powerful new machines have inspired a shift in how we define ourselves both as individuals and as a species. Hayles tracks this shift across the history of avant-garde computer theory, starting with Norbert Weiner and other early "cyberneticists," who were the first to systematically explore the similarities between living and computing systems. Hayles's study ends with artificial-life specialists, many of whom no longer even bother to distinguish between life forms and computers. Along the way she shows these thinkers struggling to reconcile their traditional, Western notions of human identity with the unsettling, cyborg directions in which their own work seems to be leading humanity. This is more than just the story of a geek elite, however. Hayles looks at cybernetically inspired science fiction by the likes of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson to show how the larger culture grapples with the same issues that dog the technologists. She also draws lucidly on her own broad grasp of contemporary philosophy both to contextualize those issues and to contend with them herself. The result is a fascinating introduction--and a valuable addition--to one of the most important currents in recent intellectual history. --Julian Dibbell
Product Description
In this age of DNA computers and artificial intelligence, information is becoming disembodied even as the "bodies" that once carried it vanish into virtuality. While some marvel at these changes, envisioning consciousness downloaded into a computer or humans "beamed" Star Trek-style, others view them with horror, seeing monsters brooding in the machines. In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles separates hype from fact, investigating the fate of embodiment in an information age.
Hayles relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is, how it came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the liberal humanist "subject" in cybernetic discourse, along with the emergence of the "posthuman."
Ranging widely across the history of technology, cultural studies, and literary criticism, Hayles shows what had to be erased, forgotten, and elided to conceive of information as a disembodied entity. Thus she moves from the post-World War II Macy Conferences on cybernetics to the 1952 novel Limbo by cybernetics aficionado Bernard Wolfe; from the concept of self-making to Philip K. Dick's literary explorations of hallucination and reality; and from artificial life to postmodern novels exploring the implications of seeing humans as cybernetic systems.
Although becoming posthuman can be nightmarish, Hayles shows how it can also be liberating. From the birth of cybernetics to artificial life, How We Became Posthuman provides an indispensable account of how we arrived in our virtual age, and of where we might go from here.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Hayles Forgets and Didn't do her research May 1, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Interesting how Ms. Hayles does not mention the transhuman or transhumanism, Max More and his seminal essay "Becoming Posthuman" written several years before Ms. Hayles book was published. Anyone using the book in their course work might want to think about this.
What is the Posthuman Future? October 23, 2005
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is an important, impressive, and infuriating book that should be read by all those interested in the posthuman movement, the possibility of a cyborg future, and the nature of cyberspace. I agree with other reviewers that it is a penetrating analysis of the cultural revolution taking place in information and what it means for human (and posthuman) society. It is important as a powerful statement of the post-modern concern with embodiment and what that might portend for the future of humanity. It is impressive as a wide-ranging analysis of the inter-linkages of technology, culture, and the human body. It is infuriating because of the jargon-filled text and convoluted nature of the writing. That last criticism is one that is generic for post-modern works such as this, and certainly not a specific criticism of this book.
UCLA professor of English N. Katherine Hayles makes the case that the body (or lack thereof) is central to this posthuman future. She notes that the body is lost in the information age, as disembodied voices/knowledge/data came to dominate thinking about a posthuman evolutionary stage. She also explores the development of the concept of the cyborg, and what the merger of humans and machines might eventually come to mean. She undertakes the analysis through a series of case studies. One of the best of them is her chapter on the science fiction of Philip K. Dick, whose novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was made into the classic feature film "Blade Runner." His obsession with artificial life, and by extension "real" life, consumed much of Dick's writing and has much to say about the essence of the posthuman.
The most challenging and interesting part of this book is Hayles argument that Homo sapiens as a species are endangered in ways we have never conceptualized. Hayles notes that the rise of artificial life will lead to the next stage of the evolution of life on Earth. "If the name of the game is processing information," she writes, "it is only a matter of time until intelligent machines replace us as our evolutionary heirs. Whether we decide to fight them or join them by becoming computers ourselves, the days of the human race are numbered" (p. 243). The author does not view this with serious trepidation. As her last sentence in the book states: "Although some current versions of the posthuman point toward the anti-human and the apocalyptic, we can craft others that will be conducive to the long-range survival of humans and of the other life-forms, biological and artificial, with whom we share the planet and ourselves" (p. 291).
I think Hayles would agree with the Borg's slogan, "resistance is futile," but not with the dystopian concept of the human future it offers.
 REDEFINING WHAT HUMAN IS -- into the 22nd Century July 20, 2003
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
Yes, this is 22nd Century thinking today. I was fortunate enough to meet the author at a LA FUTURISTS SOCIETY meeting where she was a guest speaker. She looks ordinary-- like a college professor-type, speaks clearly but her writing is the extraordinary talent. She combines humanism and science to see how virtual bodies and informatics are influencing how we live, work and love. One of those books that yearns for you to write in the margins and put your notes in the back. Pages and pages of notes on my copy. No one will share this copy, don't even ask!!!! Not an easy read but well worth the journey. I love to read books in hours or days but this one took weeks (in between other reading) and it was well worth every minute, hour, day spent. Perfect book for this summer when the MACHINES ARE TAKING OVER on our screens at movies and television. The crossover from cybernetics to literature is what is so fascinating. I can't begin to summarize all that I learned and all the questions that it brought up for me to seek out more info. Belongs on every science and literature teacher's shelf. One of the books they should require for every engineer and techie at the beginning of their careers. Make way for the future!!!!!
 Too full of jargon for me May 22, 2003
3 out of 14 found this review helpful
This is probably one of the hardest books I have ever read--with no background in either philosophy or cybernetics, much of what Hayles discusses is just plain incomprehensible. I also found it difficult to accept the idea of humans already being "post-human." If you are interested in deep philosophical writings on technology and the human condition, with links to literature, read this. If you don't really care about the post-human, skip it.
this book rules, her writing style is near impenetrable February 10, 2003
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is worth the effort. Or maybe all the effort you'll put into this triggers a cognitive dissonance reaction: I just spent 4 hours reading one chapter, so it must have been good. Right? Right?This book is good, if only for her obvious reverence for the cyberpunk grandaddy PKD (Phil K Dick if you don't know already). Whether or not you accept her premise that we are already "posthuman" she considers her subject matter in a most interesting and relevent way, bringing in fiction that relates to the subject, as well as the history of computing and cybernetics (with some fun little anecdotes about the one and only Norbert Weiner). If you're a geek or into future-minded philosophy, pick this one up. She makes some convincing arguments, it just takes a good long while to decipher what those arguments actually are.
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