=> (lost) body of information => the cyborg => posthuman body => (found) body of information

“Speculative fictions constructs a semiotics of virtuality by showing how the central concepts of information and materiality can be mapped onto a multilayered semiotic square”
(Towards embodied virtuality, Hayles, 1999, p24)

“Metaphor performs essential functions in orienting and guiding thought; it connects abstraction and embodiment; it allows us to discover regularities between what we perceive and what exists outside of ourselves; and it entwines cultural presuppositions with scientific frameworks.”
(Desiring Agency, Hayles, 2001, p.144)

“a definition formation originates in human experience and imagining: a concept exists in the world – humans experience the concept – humans create concept images in their minds – humans create concept definitions – humans operate with concepts”
(Creating and reading images, Lakovic, 2010, p.128)

Constrained Constructivism: “is that reality is never present to us as such; rather, our sense perceptions are self-organising processes that construct the world we know from the unmediated flux, unknowable in itself”
(Desiring Agency, Hayles 2001, p.145).

This all seems like one big experiment to me! An experiment to explain the existent. We are all ‘information’ bound by materiality (that seems to accepted), the 20th C and Modernism, bound by atomic physics has uncovered a journey to posthuman. If information has no dimensions, no materiality, no necessary connection with meaning (Shannon, in Hayles, 1999, p21), and that “Metaphor performs essential functions in orienting and guiding thought; it connects abstraction and embodiment;” (Hayles, 2001) – So! The dichotomy between the analogue domain and the digital domain is key to this narrative… Virtuality (Posthuman) is the link, the tool that leads to a semiotic interpretation of information, information that has no dimensions, no materiality, no necessary connection with meaning – that’s why ‘critical design’ exists – making better sense of ‘Bridget Riley’ at last!

Better start the journey then…

Cyborgs to Cognisphere (Posthuman), this paper very much fits into my ideas around the teacher as translator ‘BableFish’ plugging into the ‘Cognisphere’ the management of information and learning as opposed to the delivery of learning, make the essence of learning transparent through observing activity online ‘informatics’.

“the cognisphere gives a name and shape to the globally interconnected cognitive systems in which humans are increasingly embedded” (Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere).
Hayles reflects on a number issues in this paper that have been bugging me for a while, the contradiction (I think) between ‘means and metaphor’, the use of ‘computational’ as metaphor in relations to eco systems, learning et al, and Means – has value to achieve an end. A practical use of metaphor (semiotics), a contradiction to the logic of sequential processes, where quantification is impossible, a disembodied view of information “a separation between a material body and an immaterial essence” (Hayles). Where does the creativity come from in computational – “what we make and what we think” (Hayles).

“The computational metaphor is potent because networked and programmable devices are so fast, powerful and interconnected; if the technology did not exist, the metaphor would not have the traction it does” (Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere).

The development of language and the sequential ordering of thought (words, sounds), reflecting the evolution of the brain and the production of compound tools, tools that consist of more than one part, the axe to the computer. Is creativity the re-ordering of a sequential ordering of thought, if this is the case then the Cognisphere ‘computational’ and ‘human agency’ may provide infinite answers to infinite problems.

“In highly developed and networked societies such as the US, human awareness comprises the tip of a huge pyramid of data flows, most of which occur between machines. Emphasising the dynamic and interactive nature of these exchanges, Thomas Whalen (2000) has called this global phenomenon the cognisphere” (Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere).

What will the teacher look like in the near future? An application/s that can deliver bespoke knowledge, learning and assessment simply managed by human agency? Will the exam become a relic of of the industrial revolution, in favour of ‘micro’ continual auto assessment… what else?