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"Navigating between Risk and Return"
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God and Golem, Inc. Revisited

[ Strategic Implications of Pervasive Computing,
Virtual Reality and Knowledge Management ]

{ Language switch to Dutch }

STALEMATE



The title of the current page is derived from a work by Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), coiner of the term 'cybernetics'. The latter was defined by its originator in a previous writing under the same name and subtitled "The science of control and communication in the animal and the machine" (1948). In "God and Golem, Inc." (1964) Wiener incorporated the new meaning of teleology in addressing the societal ramifications of cybernetics and its intersection with religion.

That notion of purposiveness will serve here as a thread through strategic issues involving the contemporary relationship between man and machine. Topics involve human and artificial intelligence, the mind-body problem in light of virtual and augmented reality, the merging of man and machine through the convergence of biological and computer sciences, and communication as shaped by pervasive computation and nanotechnology. Departing from philosophical considerations of the implications of state-of-the-art technology for society, we seek to arrive at a pragmatic assessment of the continuing evolution of Homo cyberneticus within a global knowledge economy.

Contributions will be made accessible as they become available, attesting to the fact that this page is under perpetual construction.

* The Man-machine Relation: Towards a Phenomenology of Human Evolution

Consider contemporary technology-driven society as a stage in the course of human evolution. The following treatment of the phylogenetic, ontogenetic, communicative and subjective components of this ongoing development is meant to contribute to a phenomenology of the evolving human organism.

  • Material, organic and mental dimensions of computationally pervaded society


  • Technologically augmented human development: a note on the mind/body problem


  • Human expression of thought, ubiquitous communication and interactive/intelligent media


  • Symbolic manipulation, consciousness and archetypes: intel(ligence) inside



  • * Corporeality


  • Intrapersonal communication (mind/body duality)


  • Interpersonal communication (message/medium)


  • Homo faber and technology


  • Homo religiosus and sacred procedures



  • * Homo cyberneticus and Virtual Reality


  • Cognition and information science


  • Scientific project(ion) and objectification/externalization


  • Virtual reality: Reality of the artificial


  • * Teleology 

    From purposiveness through ontology and purpose towards Divine Purpose...

  • Purposiveness


  • Ontology and purpose


  • Divine Purpose



  • * Consciousness


  • Inflexio, perception and being


  • Reflexio and self-conscious being


  • Meditatio, contemplatio and unself-conscious being



  • Bibliography