Comments for enemyindustry http://enemyindustry.net/blog philosophy at the edge of the human Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:40:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Comment on Levi on Darwin and Posthumanism by Scott Bakker http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2919&cpage=1#comment-8173 Scott Bakker Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:40:23 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2919#comment-8173 How FAR do you agree, David? It's easy to snatch one intentional concept from the bag - in this case purpose - and argue that it has no place period or in this or that ontological domain, but what if it's the case that intentional concepts are all of a piece? How FAR do you agree, David? It’s easy to snatch one intentional concept from the bag – in this case purpose – and argue that it has no place period or in this or that ontological domain, but what if it’s the case that intentional concepts are all of a piece?

]]> Comment on Hacking Humans by Scott Bakker http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2870&cpage=1#comment-7775 Scott Bakker Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:51:02 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2870#comment-7775 If that is, all uncertainties are equal, which is not the case here, is it? A 'maybe-gun' (that maybe rewards or maybe damages) can be aimed in an infinite number of outward directions without threatening oneself (because only some entail damaging consequences), but no directions in. If that is, all uncertainties are equal, which is not the case here, is it? A ‘maybe-gun’ (that maybe rewards or maybe damages) can be aimed in an infinite number of outward directions without threatening oneself (because only some entail damaging consequences), but no directions in.

]]> Comment on Hacking Humans by enemyin1 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2870&cpage=1#comment-7774 enemyin1 Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:29:48 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2870#comment-7774 Scott, it's not that I don't find the PP convincing. It is only convincing in a version etiolated enough to be consistent with exploration of posthuman design space. A stringent PP is self-vitiating since the risks of not engaging in developing a technology whose long run results are uncertain are also uncertain. Scott, it’s not that I don’t find the PP convincing. It is only convincing in a version etiolated enough to be consistent with exploration of posthuman design space. A stringent PP is self-vitiating since the risks of not engaging in developing a technology whose long run results are uncertain are also uncertain.

]]> Comment on Hacking Humans by Scott Bakker http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2870&cpage=1#comment-7772 Scott Bakker Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:17:01 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2870#comment-7772 My pessimism need only be plausible to confront Marone with a potentially insuperable problem, I think. Given that, she's affirming a certain bet, nothing more. Given that the stakes are existential, then the precautionary principle, which I know you don't find convincing, becomes progressively more difficult to dismiss. And I actually think the pessimistic induction warranted by psychology and neuroscience is quite strong: I see no reason to assume that the findings of either will any less counterintuitive than so far. I also think the pessimistic induction you can draw from the history of natural science more generally is also strong: intentional explanatory schemes, no matter what their domain, have given way to functional explanatory schemes. Put these two together, and I think that, as counterintuitive as it might seem, you have the basis of a troubling story. The reason meaning and morality resist naturalization is simply because they don't exist (I should note this isn't what I believe, just where I think the inferences lead us), which is to say, are nothing natural. This is enough to make my 'semantic parochialism argument' plausible, I think. We know that consciousness, whatever it is, is informatically localized. It barely gets a 'taste' of what the brain is doing. The idea is that the human brain IS what you call a 'Non-symbolic Workspace,' and that 'meaning' and 'normativity' are a kind of 'perspectival illusions' pertaining to the constraints placed on what little brain information makes it to consciousness. That they are literally cognitive illusions. Magic tricks. My pessimism need only be plausible to confront Marone with a potentially insuperable problem, I think. Given that, she’s affirming a certain bet, nothing more. Given that the stakes are existential, then the precautionary principle, which I know you don’t find convincing, becomes progressively more difficult to dismiss.

And I actually think the pessimistic induction warranted by psychology and neuroscience is quite strong: I see no reason to assume that the findings of either will any less counterintuitive than so far. I also think the pessimistic induction you can draw from the history of natural science more generally is also strong: intentional explanatory schemes, no matter what their domain, have given way to functional explanatory schemes.

Put these two together, and I think that, as counterintuitive as it might seem, you have the basis of a troubling story. The reason meaning and morality resist naturalization is simply because they don’t exist (I should note this isn’t what I believe, just where I think the inferences lead us), which is to say, are nothing natural.

This is enough to make my ‘semantic parochialism argument’ plausible, I think.

We know that consciousness, whatever it is, is informatically localized. It barely gets a ‘taste’ of what the brain is doing. The idea is that the human brain IS what you call a ‘Non-symbolic Workspace,’ and that ‘meaning’ and ‘normativity’ are a kind of ‘perspectival illusions’ pertaining to the constraints placed on what little brain information makes it to consciousness.

That they are literally cognitive illusions. Magic tricks.

]]> Comment on Biohacking by Scott Bakker http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2868&cpage=1#comment-7761 Scott Bakker Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:55:17 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2868#comment-7761 Great link. I'm curious to see what you think about my off-the-cuff response, David. http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/the-posthuman-paradox/ Great link. I’m curious to see what you think about my off-the-cuff response, David.

http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/the-posthuman-paradox/

]]> Comment on Mike Wheeler on Heidegger, Cognition and the Transcendental by Scott Bakker http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2837&cpage=1#comment-7760 Scott Bakker Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:37:11 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2837#comment-7760 The problem is twofold however. First, as Kant discovered, the constitutive conditions you arrive at tend to depend on your inititial interpretation of the conditioned, which depends where you find yourself in the philosophical tradition (or even, as Nietzsche liked to say, what you had for breakfast). Second, philosophy and phenomenology simply do not possess the institutional/procedural werewithal to resolve interpretative disputes. Naturalism is skeptical to the extent science is skeptical. The problem, it seems to me, isn't whether science presupposes X's so much as our inability to arbitrate between the heaps of interpretative X's transcendental speculation proposes they presuppose. Unless I missed something (I have a 2 year old, so that's entirely possible!), he doesn't address this issue. So I'm not sure where the reconciliation could possibly come in. Given that he's Heideggerean, he's made his bet: HX is what science presupposes. But why should that impress any one else? The problem is twofold however. First, as Kant discovered, the constitutive conditions you arrive at tend to depend on your inititial interpretation of the conditioned, which depends where you find yourself in the philosophical tradition (or even, as Nietzsche liked to say, what you had for breakfast). Second, philosophy and phenomenology simply do not possess the institutional/procedural werewithal to resolve interpretative disputes.

Naturalism is skeptical to the extent science is skeptical. The problem, it seems to me, isn’t whether science presupposes X’s so much as our inability to arbitrate between the heaps of interpretative X’s transcendental speculation proposes they presuppose. Unless I missed something (I have a 2 year old, so that’s entirely possible!), he doesn’t address this issue.

So I’m not sure where the reconciliation could possibly come in. Given that he’s Heideggerean, he’s made his bet: HX is what science presupposes. But why should that impress any one else?

]]> Comment on Brassier, Sellars and Davidson by - Siobhan McKeown http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2654&cpage=1#comment-7749 - Siobhan McKeown Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:32:38 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2654#comment-7749 [...] Then I picked up this on Twitter, which is a discussion between a friend who I knew at Warwick, the writer Scott Bakker and some other Philosophy type people. It reminded me exactly of what I was getting out of. I hate that really small, tight (often pedantic) type of discussion of things that don’t really matter to anyone else except a few people. And that’s what Philosophy is, right? [...] [...] Then I picked up this on Twitter, which is a discussion between a friend who I knew at Warwick, the writer Scott Bakker and some other Philosophy type people. It reminded me exactly of what I was getting out of. I hate that really small, tight (often pedantic) type of discussion of things that don’t really matter to anyone else except a few people. And that’s what Philosophy is, right? [...]

]]> Comment on Posthuman Life by Scott Bakker http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2770&cpage=1#comment-7680 Scott Bakker Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:04:21 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2770#comment-7680 Have you had a chance to check out this particular Atrocity Tale: http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/stories/the-false-sun/ It contains a couple of revelations otherwise reserved for The Unholy Consult, but I think it puts the stakes of the 'metaphysical mystery saga' I'm trying to tell into pretty stark focus. The 'hierarchy of the human' riddles the series, with everything twisting toward a single Escherian hinge... As I'm sure I'll be arguing over the coming months, the problem of the posthuman is the problem of nihilism made concrete. Enjoy the blank pages while you can! They turn into a curse all to soon. Have you had a chance to check out this particular Atrocity Tale: http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/stories/the-false-sun/
It contains a couple of revelations otherwise reserved for The Unholy Consult, but I think it puts the stakes of the ‘metaphysical mystery saga’ I’m trying to tell into pretty stark focus. The ‘hierarchy of the human’ riddles the series, with everything twisting toward a single Escherian hinge…

As I’m sure I’ll be arguing over the coming months, the problem of the posthuman is the problem of nihilism made concrete.

Enjoy the blank pages while you can! They turn into a curse all to soon.

]]> Comment on Posthuman Life by Scott Bakker http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2770&cpage=1#comment-7679 Scott Bakker Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:04:21 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2770#comment-7679 Have you had a chance to check out this particular Atrocity Tale: http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/stories/the-false-sun/ It contains a couple of revelations otherwise reserved for The Unholy Consult, but I think it puts the stakes of the 'metaphysical mystery saga' I'm trying to tell into pretty stark focus. The 'hierarchy of the human' riddles the series, with everything twisting toward a single Escherian hinge... As I'm sure I'll be arguing over the coming months, the problem of the posthuman is the problem of nihilism made concrete. Enjoy the blank pages while you can! They turn into a curse all to soon. Have you had a chance to check out this particular Atrocity Tale: http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/stories/the-false-sun/
It contains a couple of revelations otherwise reserved for The Unholy Consult, but I think it puts the stakes of the ‘metaphysical mystery saga’ I’m trying to tell into pretty stark focus. The ‘hierarchy of the human’ riddles the series, with everything twisting toward a single Escherian hinge…

As I’m sure I’ll be arguing over the coming months, the problem of the posthuman is the problem of nihilism made concrete.

Enjoy the blank pages while you can! They turn into a curse all to soon.

]]> Comment on Posthuman Life by enemyin1 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2770&cpage=1#comment-7675 enemyin1 Wed, 14 Mar 2012 08:27:12 +0000 http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=2770#comment-7675 BTW: I've been intrigued by the way the Aspect Emperor and Prince of Nothing series are shadowing debates about the posthuman. Kellhus and the Dunyain really don't <em>seem </em>human as one of the characters observes. At the same time the "apocalypse" is a hard take-off in a world governed by magic (with the No-God as a Synthetic Pharmakon to God). It's a fascinating riff on Charlie Stross' idea of Dark Lord Revisionism and I can't but feel a sneaking sympathy for the Consult, who, as you say, only want to save their souls. Existence in the afterlife of the world of Aspect Emperor is so likely to be horrible even for 'good' people like Achamian, who wouldn't do anything to seal off "heaven"? BTW: I’ve been intrigued by the way the Aspect Emperor and Prince of Nothing series are shadowing debates about the posthuman. Kellhus and the Dunyain really don’t seem human as one of the characters observes. At the same time the “apocalypse” is a hard take-off in a world governed by magic (with the No-God as a Synthetic Pharmakon to God). It’s a fascinating riff on Charlie Stross’ idea of Dark Lord Revisionism and I can’t but feel a sneaking sympathy for the Consult, who, as you say, only want to save their souls. Existence in the afterlife of the world of Aspect Emperor is so likely to be horrible even for ‘good’ people like Achamian, who wouldn’t do anything to seal off “heaven”?

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