by Susan Blackmore
All around us information seems to be multiplying at an ever increasing pace. New books are published, new designs for toasters and i-gadgets appear, new music is composed or synthesized and, perhaps above all, new content is uploaded into cyberspace. This is rather strange. We know that matter and energy cannot increase but
Continue reading Temes: An Emerging Third Replicator
by Margaret Boden
Creativity and computers: what could these possibly have to do with one another? “Nothing!,” many people would say. The two are simply incompatible.”
Well, I disagree. Computers and creativity make interesting partners with respect to two different projects. One, which interests me the most, is understanding human creativity. The other is trying to produce
Continue reading Can computer models help us to understand human creativity?
by William G. Lycan
Abstracted from ‘Qualitative experience in machines,’ The Digital Phoenix: How computers are changing philosophy.
1. Many people, perhaps most people, have the idea that, however problematic qualitative experience is for the case of human beings, it is a lot more so for that of machines constructed by human beings. Few philosophers doubt that
Continue reading Qualitative Experience in Machines
by: Timothy Lenoir
Most researchers agree that there is no reason in principle why we will not eventually develop conscious machines that rival or surpass human intelligence. If we are crossing to a new era of the posthuman, how have we gotten here? And how should we understand the process?
Cultural theorists have addressed the topic
Continue reading Contemplating Singularity
by Joseph Tabbi
In a panel discussion at the 1998 “Bookends” conference at SUNY Albany, Jacques Derrida spoke of Internet initiatives under way by his younger colleagues in France at the time. The first thing they would do, he said, is set up editorial boards, appoint in-house grant writers, and establish closed review processes – effectively
Continue reading On Reading 300 Works of Electronic Literature: Preliminary Reflections
by Willard McCarty
In Terrence’s Self-Tormentor the old man Chremes proclaims, “I am a human being. I consider nothing human alien to me” (homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto) – a proclamation of magnanimity that lept out of this 2nd-century B.C. play and took on a proud, expansive life of its own. But alongside
Continue reading Who am I computing?