Author |
Johnston, John |
Year |
2008 |
Publisher |
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press |
Number of pages |
480 |
Keywords |
speculative fiction |
Abstract
Amazon (2013):
In The Allure of Machinic Life, John Johnston examines new forms of nascent life that
emerge through technical interactions within human-constructed environments--"machinic
life"--in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence.
With the development of such research initiatives as the evolution of digital organisms,
computer immune systems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems,
Johnston argues, machinic life has achieved a complexity and autonomy worthy of study
in its own right. Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of
work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, but always with the primary focus
on the "objects at hand"--the machines, programs, and processes that constitute machinic
life--Johnston shows how they come about, how they operate, and how they are already
changing. This understanding is a necessary first step, he further argues, that must
precede speculation about the meaning and cultural implications of these new forms
of life. Developing the concept of the "computational assemblage" (a machine and its
associated discourse) as a framework to identify both resemblances and differences
in form and function, Johnston offers a conceptual history of each of the three sciences.
He considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives,
including Lacanian psychoanalysis and "machinic philosophy." He examines the history
of the new science of artificial life and its relation to theories of evolution, emergence,
and complex adaptive systems (as illustrated by a series of experiments carried out
on various software platforms). He describes the history of artificial intelligence
as a series of unfolding conceptual conflicts--decodings and recodings--leading to
a "new AI" that is strongly influenced by artificial life. Finally, in examining the
role played by neuroscience in several contemporary research initiatives, he shows
how further success in the building of intelligent machines will most likely result
from progress in our understanding of how the human brain actually works. John Johnston
is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Emory University in Atlanta.
He is the author of Carnival of Repetition and Information Multiplicity.