Lacan's Cybernetics
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
1 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This Copy of the Thesis Has Been
University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2012 Life Expansion: Toward an Artistic, Design-Based Theory of the Transhuman / Posthuman Vita-More, Natasha http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/1182 University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent. 1 Life Expansion: Toward an Artistic, Design-Based Theory of the Transhuman / Posthuman by NATASHA VITA-MORE A thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth in partial fulfillment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Art & Media Faculty of Arts April 2012 2 Natasha Vita-More Life Expansion: Toward an Artistic, Design-Based Theory of the Transhuman / Posthuman The thesis’ study of life expansion proposes a framework for artistic, design-based approaches concerned with prolonging human life and sustaining personal identity. To delineate the topic: life expansion means increasing the length of time a person is alive and diversifying the matter in which a person exists. -
Reading the World, Writing the Mind: Ideology, Morphogenesis, Revolution
READING THE WORLD, WRITING THE MIND: IDEOLOGY, MORPHOGENESIS, REVOLUTION by Philip Edmond Olsen A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Wilkes Honors College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences with a Concentration in Philosophy Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University Jupiter, Florida May 2014 READING THE WORLD, WRITING THE MIND: IDEOLOGY, MORPHOGENESIS, REVOLUTION by Philip Edmond Olsen This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor, Dr. Daniel White, and has been approved by the members of her/his supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Honors College and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ____________________________ Dr. Daniel White ____________________________ Dr. Michael Harrawood ______________________________ Dean Jeffrey Buller, Wilkes Honors College ___________ Date ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Daniel White, for his insight, conversation, and encouragement. I would also like to thank Dr. Michael Harrawood for giving me a lot of books and talking about philosophy with me. Finally, I would like to thank Calvin Bankert, John Carney, Alexa Robinson, Janeen Smith, and Daniel Zengotita for talking to me about things. It all helped. iii ABSTRACT Author: Philip Edmond Olsen Title: Reading the World, Writing the Mind: Ideology, Morphogenesis, Revolution Institution: Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Daniel White Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences Concentration: Philosophy Year: 2014 In the 1960s, the French Communist thinker Louis Althusser undertook to reorient capitalistic societies toward realizing socialist ideals. -
Claude Bernard
DOI: 10.1590/0004-282X20130239 HISTORICAL NOTES Claude Bernard: bicentenary of birth and his main contributions to neurology Claude Bernard: bicentenário do nascimento e suas principais contribuições à neurologia Marleide da Mota Gomes1, Eliasz Engelhardt2 ABSTRACT Claude Bernard (1813-1878) followed two main research paths: the chemical and physiological study of digestion and liver function, along with experimental section of nerves and studies on sympathetic nerves. Curare studies were, for example, of longstanding interest. His profound mental creativity and hand skillfulness, besides methodology quality, directed his experiments and findings, mainly at the Collège de France. His broader and epistemological concerns were carried out at the Sorbonne and later at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. His insight gave clues to define the “ milieu intérieur”, later known as “homeostasis”, and grasp the brain complexity. Bernard followed and surpassed his master François Magendie who also fought against dogmas and laid the foundations of experimental medicine, and its main heinous tool – vivisection. Bernard created the methodological bases of experimental medicine, and collected honors as a renowned researcher. Keywords: Claude Bernard, sympathetic nerves, homeosthasis, epistemology, history of neurosciences. RESUMO Em suas pesquisas, Claude Bernard (1813-1878) seguiu dois caminhos principais: o estudo fisiológico e químico da digestão e da função hepática; a seção experimental de nervos e os estudos sobre nervos simpáticos. Estudos sobre curare, por exemplo, foram de interesse duradouro. Suas profundas criatividade mental e habilidade manual, além da qualidade metodológica, conduziram às suas experiências e descobertas, principalmente no Collège de France. Seus interesses sobre temas epistemológicos mais amplos foram conduzidos na Sorbonne e, posteriormente, no Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. -
Sublimation in the Atheist Sigmund Freud: Religion and Sublimation in Carl G
CHAPTER FOUR SUBLIMATION IN THE ATHEIST SIGMUND FREUD: RELIGION AND SUBLIMATION IN CARL G. JUNG AND OTTO RANK Freud’s two main additions to the theory of man—the primacy of the unconscious and the centrality of sexuality, were set forth by him early in his career. His masterwork Th e Interpretation of Dreams (1900), with its all-important early section “Th e Project,”148 aimed to put the theory of the unconscious on a scientifi c footing once and for all, or at the very least, on a fi rmer scientifi c footing than anyone had placed it hitherto. Ernest Jones in the fi rst volume of his biography of Freud emphasizes that medical psychology had been groping towards the theory of the unconscious—the idea “that all one’s mental capacities could be in full usage without consciousness being called up” (words of British psy- chologist Sir Samuel Wilkes)—for at least two decades before Freud’s epoch-making book appeared.149 Th ough Freud cites a host of psychol- ogists who wrote on the unconscious, Berlin psychologist Th eodor Lipps was one of his most important predecessors. As early as 1883 Lipps had written the following: “We not only assert the existence of unconscious mental processes alongside the conscious ones. We fur- ther postulate that the unconscious processes are the basis of the con- scious ones. [italics mine—ALC] In the proper conditions unconscious processes rise to consciousness and then return to the unconscious.”150 Freud underlined this passage in his copy of Lipps’ article which is in his personal library and this is what Freud went on to prove scientifi - cally in his 600+-page work. -
Terms for Talking About Information and Communication
Information 2012, 3, 351-371; doi:10.3390/info3030351 OPEN ACCESS information ISSN 2078-2489 www.mdpi.com/journal/information Concept Paper Terms for Talking about Information and Communication Corey Anton School of Communications, Grand Valley State University, 210 Lake Superior Hall, Allendale, MI 49401, USA; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-616-331-3668; Fax: +1-616-331-2700 Received: 4 June 2012; in revised form: 17 August 2012 / Accepted: 20 August 2012 / Published: 27 August 2012 Abstract: This paper offers terms for talking about information and how it relates to both matter-energy and communication, by: (1) Identifying three different levels of signs: Index, based in contiguity, icon, based in similarity, and symbol, based in convention; (2) examining three kinds of coding: Analogic differences, which deal with positive quantities having contiguous and continuous values, and digital distinctions, which include “either/or functions”, discrete values, and capacities for negation, decontextualization, and abstract concept-transfer, and finally, iconic coding, which incorporates both analogic differences and digital distinctions; and (3) differentiating between “information theoretic” orientations (which deal with data, what is “given as meaningful” according to selections and combinations within “contexts of choice”) and “communication theoretic” ones (which deal with capta, what is “taken as meaningful” according to various “choices of context”). Finally, a brief envoi reflects on how information broadly construed relates to probability and entropy. Keywords: sign; index; icon; symbol; coding; context; information; communication “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. -
Voice, Superego and Violence
European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol.2 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 VOICE, SUPEREGO AND VIOLENCE Dra. Araceli Colin232 Autonomous University of Queretaro Abstract The ideology is constructed with a social discourse interweaved with the unconscious desire of the parents to the child, registered through signifiers. The plot that organizes all these modes of transmission and the way to incorporate and subjectivizate them is the voice. The voices of the parents take place in the superego. The superego is a foundation for subsequent voices of authority, whether educational or political. The voices of the superego are fierce and imperative and does not admite doubt. From this basis we are going to do a critical reading to the governmental dispositive to attend intra-family violence in Mexico. Keywords: Superego, Voice, Unconscious, Subjectivization Introduction Marx, in his Preface to A Contribution to The Critique of Political Economy, formulated one of his principal aphorisms and the foundation of a materialist psychology: "It is not the consciousness of the man that determines their being social, but their social being that determines consciousness"(1978:518) (1859). The analytic practice confirms this Marxist postulate. Although they have had reciprocal influences, the differences between Psychology and Psychoanalysis are well known. The object of study of Psychoanalysis is the unconscious. Departing from the Marxist aphorism and adding this unconscious dimension, the same phrase could be restated as: “it is not the unconscious part of humans which determines their social being, but it is rather their social being that determines the unconscious.” Freud demonstrated that consciousness is a mere surface where thoughts and associations appear, but having an evanescent character. -
Warren Mcculloch and the British Cyberneticians
Warren McCulloch and the British cyberneticians Article (Accepted Version) Husbands, Phil and Holland, Owen (2012) Warren McCulloch and the British cyberneticians. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 37 (3). pp. 237-253. ISSN 0308-0188 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/43089/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version. Copyright and reuse: Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University. Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Warren McCulloch and the British Cyberneticians1 Phil Husbands and Owen Holland Dept. Informatics, University of Sussex Abstract Warren McCulloch was a significant influence on a number of British cyberneticians, as some British pioneers in this area were on him. -
1 Evolution of Psychoanalytic Concepts I: Introduction to Freud D
Evolution of Psychoanalytic Concepts I: Introduction to Freud D. Thurn / Fall 2016 Syllabus Course Description This course will trace the movement of Freud's thinking as he struggles to address theoretical and clinical problems that arise within several broad areas of inquiry, including trauma, dreams, sexuality, object relations, and culture. We will explore Freud's contributions in three major phases of his career, each organized around a specific model of the mind, and consider their implications for psychoanalysis as a theory of the de-centered subject. We will treat psychoanalysis as both a theoretical discourse and a reflexive clinical procedure which assumes a radical alterity at the heart of human subjectivity and relationship. As such, the course will provide an opportunity to examine what we might call "the vicissitudes of the other" in Freud's thought as it unfolds in the space marked out by the conflicting claims of mind and body, inside and outside, imagination and reality, determinism and chance, singularity and universality, and self and other. Each of the three phases in Freud's thinking as it appears in our readings will feature a significant intellectual and clinical encounter: with cases of hysteria, which will lead Freud, under the influence of Charcot, to break with the assumptions of German materialist physiology, to propose a bold new notion of psychic causality, and to lay the groundwork for a radical theory of sexuality; with the mystery of dreams, which will produce not only an interpretive discipline for addressing the productions of the unconscious, but an entire theory of psychic structure and activity; and with melancholia, which will instigate the creation of a new theory of the divided mind, and the (re-)emergence of a theory of object relations based more fully on the claims of external reality. -
Spangler Ku 0099D 11237 DA
Abstract This study sought to gain a deeper understanding of the types of benefits, programs, and organizational practices employers currently are providing to prevent distress among employees or to help employees become more resilient to adverse conditions. Forty-six employer representatives discussed the perceived strengths of their organizations’ approaches during interviews and discussion groups. Grounded theory methodology was employed to sample and analyze these data. Based on patterns that emerged from the narratives of these participants, a model is proposed to explain three effective approaches used by employers in addressing stress in the workplace: 1) preventing stress/building resilience, 2) providing information, resources, and benefits to employees, and 3) intervening actively with troubled employees. Trust, both in relationships and in organizational structures, emerged as a core concept explaining effectiveness of these approaches. This model may be used to frame future strategies used by employers to support healthy engaged employees and to guide investigations into social and emotional aspects related to work. iii Acknowledgments Finishing a dissertation feels similar to climbing a mountain – looking back on where you have been makes you feel a little weary, but the view from the top is quite exhilarating and immensely satisfying. You also see there are other peaks left to master. I offer warm gratitude to many people who helped me during my climb. To all of the professors over the years who created opportunities for thinking deeply and pondering life’s important questions. To Lisa Mische Lawson for helping to chart my course of study over the years in the Therapeutic Science curriculum and advice during the dissertation process. -
Invention of Hysteria : Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière / Georges Didi-Huberman ; Translated by Alisa Hartz
Invention of Hysteria This page intentionally left blank Invention of Hysteria Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière Georges Didi-Huberman Translated by Alisa Hartz The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Originally published in 1982 by Éditions Macula, Paris. ©1982 Éditions Macula, Paris. This translation ©2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or infor- mation storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Bembo by Graphic Composition, Inc. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Cet ouvrage, publié dans le cadre d’un programme d’aide à la publication, béné- ficie du soutien du Ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Service Culturel de l’Ambassade de France aux Etats-Unis. This work, published as part of a program of aid for publication, received sup- port from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Didi-Huberman, Georges. [Invention de l’hysterie, English] Invention of hysteria : Charcot and the photographic iconography of the Salpêtrière / Georges Didi-Huberman ; translated by Alisa Hartz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-04215-0 (hc. : alk. paper) 1. Salpêtrière (Hospital). 2. Hysteria—History. 3. Mental illness—Pictorial works. 4. Facial expression—History. -
“The Action of the Brain” Machine Models and Adaptive Functions in Turing and Ashby
“The Action of the Brain” Machine Models and Adaptive Functions in Turing and Ashby Hajo Greif1,2 1 Munich Center for Technology in Society, Technical University of Munich, Germany 2 Department of Philosophy, University of Klagenfurt, Austria [email protected] Abstract Given the personal acquaintance between Alan M. Turing and W. Ross Ashby and the partial proximity of their research fields, a comparative view of Turing’s and Ashby’s works on modelling “the action of the brain” (in a 1946 letter from Turing to Ashby) will help to shed light on the seemingly strict symbolic / embodied dichotomy: while it is a straightforward matter to demonstrate Turing’s and Ashby’s respective commitments to formal, computational and material, analogue methods of modelling, there is no unambiguous mapping of these approaches onto symbol-based AI and embodiment-centered views respectively. Instead, it will be argued that both approaches, starting from a formal core, were at least partly concerned with biological and embodied phenomena, albeit in revealingly distinct ways. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Cybernetics, Models, Embodiment, Darwinian evolution, Morphogenesis, Functionalism 1 Introduction Not very much has been written to date on the relation between Alan M. Turing and W. Ross Ashby, both of whom were members of the “Ratio Club” (1949– 1958).1 Not much of the communication between the two seems to have been preserved or discovered either, the major exception being a letter from Turing to Ashby that includes the following statement: In working on the ACE [an early digital computer] I am more interested in the possibility of producing models of the action of the brain than in the practical applications of computing. -
D4d78cb0277361f5ccf9036396b
critical terms for media studies CRITICAL TERMS FOR MEDIA STUDIES Edited by w.j.t. mitchell and mark b.n. hansen the university of chicago press Chicago and London The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2010 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2010 Printed in the United States of America 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 53254- 7 (cloth) isbn- 10: 0- 226- 53254- 2 (cloth) isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 53255- 4 (paper) isbn- 10: 0- 226- 53255- 0 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Critical terms for media studies / edited by W. J. T. Mitchell and Mark Hansen. p. cm. Includes index. isbn-13: 978-0-226-53254-7 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-226-53254-2 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-13: 978-0-226-53255-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-226-53255-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Literature and technology. 2. Art and technology. 3. Technology— Philosophy. 4. Digital media. 5. Mass media. 6. Image (Philosophy). I. Mitchell, W. J. T. (William John Th omas), 1942– II. Hansen, Mark B. N. (Mark Boris Nicola), 1965– pn56.t37c75 2010 302.23—dc22 2009030841 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48- 1992. Contents Introduction * W. J. T. Mitchell and Mark B. N. Hansen vii aesthetics Art * Johanna Drucker 3 Body * Bernadette Wegenstein 19 Image * W.