Virtual Reality

Katherine Hayles' article raises some very interesting issues about what it means to be human in the age of information. Material objects, such as money, become less important, and Hayles makes a good point about information and "durable goods" - "If I give you information, you have it, and I do too." (As a teacher, this speaks to my heart.) In the world of information, the separation between the haves and the have nots is not possession but access. I think this is true, but of course, possession of a computer and the education that enables one to use it effectively put one more squarely on the side of the haves. Even in the era of Occupy, there are those in the 99% who are much closer to the 1% than others.


I found several things in Hayles article that were disturbing; most disturbing were the photos of the female model and her robot simulacrum. Why a female, first of all? And secondly, why does she appear naked and so sexualized? Why in high heels and in a contraption that looks like a gynecologist's chair? Why is the image of the robot even more disturbing? Is it because it looks like cyber porn? Why has Hayles provided such highly charged images rather than more "neutral" ones? These are questions that are not answered, but speak to the Judith Butler article - the woman here is performing her gender, for the gaze of male, in a stereotypically sexualized way. The image of the robot was included on a video laser disk entitled "Computer Dreams". Whose dreams?


Hayles discusses how human identity as differentiated from other animals, shifted from man the tool-user to man the tool-maker when it was discovered that some non-human animals also use tools. Now that barrier between human and non-human has fallen, along with many others, with the recent observations of tool-making chimps. Hayles notes that tool-making is gendered and largely defines "man", and wonders why empathy, which she sees as a female trait, is not used to define human-ness. Frans De Waal argues that empathy is necessary for the survival of ALL social species that rely on cooperation, so again, that barrier between human and non-human has fallen. De Waal cites the famous mirror neurons discovered in macaques in Parma as proof that animals experience empathy.
De Waal also postulates that females of all species might have higher levels of empathy because it makes them more sensitive to the needs of their offspring.


Finally, I was disturbed and angered, as I always am, by the relentlessly anthropocentric idea of cyberspace as an alternate to a degraded natural world. I feel strongly that it is immoral not to stay embodied in the physical world and fight for all of life; life that we as humans did not and can not create. It was with deep relief that I read the final sentences in which Hayles comes to the same conclusion - "Embodiment can be destroyed but it cannot be replicated. Once the specific form constituting it is gone, no amount of massaging data will bring it back. This observation is as true of the planet as is is of an individual life-form. As we rush to explore the new vistas the cyberspace has made available for colonization, let us also remember the fragility of the material world that cannot be replaced." I love being connected to vast worlds of information via my lap-top, but I love being outside and feeling connected to the natural world through my physical body and its senses even more.