WhereTo and Why – the Co-Evolution of Art, Science, and Technology

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

This paper presents and defends the following theoretical arguments: (1) The uniqueness of the human condition lies in the fact that only humans engage in collaborative computation , where different individuals work together on shared computational challenges. Collaborative computation is the foundation of our cumulative cultures. (2) Collaborative computation requires individuals to engage in instructive communication , where senders do not just send messages to receivers—but also send them instructions that the receivers are obliged to follow in the course of computing the messages. (3) The process of human evolution was driven throughout by the invention and development of tools of instructive communication. (4) In this process, two separate major transitions should be identified. The first was made possible by the toolkit of representational gestures (pointing, eye contact, manual demonstration, pantomime and more) that Merlin Donald called the toolkit of mimesis . Mimesis allow...

In this paper I will analyse architect Phillip Beesley's kinetic sculpture Hylozoic Ground by taking a higher-order hermeneutical approach that studies relations of processes in and between user and work. The overall purpose of this approach is to contribute to the generation of new stories of human subjectivity that place elements from different knowledge cultures (human and natural sciences, spiritual and philosophical cultures) into one overall framework, and which by the use of new vocabularies breaks boundaries between otherwise separated cultures (C.P. Snow: The Two Cultures And A Second Look: An Expanded Version of The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. 1964). The paper will - at a conceptual level - transgress borders not only between knowledge cultures, but also between artificial and organic media – between the interfaces of the science, technology and aesthetics of art installations, and the interfaces of biological, phenomenological and meaning making flesh and blood humans. To form my analysis, I will establish an Ideal User. The Ideal User is a sensitive, emphatic navigator, and apart from having idiosyncratic properties, she is also an exemplary product of the “signification sphere (modern Western culture) that she inhabits. From this position, I will place the hermeneutical approach that allows me to make inquiry into deeper questions concerning the differences and likenesses of artificial and living organisms respectively. The purpose of the inquiry is to cast light on how we could possibly understand properties of consciousness in ourselves as living organisms. I will use Søren Brier's semiotic terms (from Cybersemiotics –why information is not enough. 2008), which allow me to characterize processes of the individual, ranging from molecular and cellular communications, to immediate phenomenological processes, and processes of thought and language generation. I will then relate the processes of the user subject to the cybernetic mechanisms involving electronic circuits, sensors and actuators, which in unification form a prerequisite for the sentient responsive behaviour of Hylozoic Ground. The aim is to let the sculpture inform otherwise theoretical approaches, and to bring the importance of the physicality of the organism into questions of human consciousness. The paper presents a speculative approach that integrates art, theory, empirical science and active thought processes in a forward directed, creative way.

2003

Although cultural evolution clearly outpaces genetic evolution in the natural world due to its higher rates of reproduction, recombination and selection, it does so built on biological foundations. In the natural world, cultural change takes place in minutes, days, years or decades, whereas genetic change takes at least a decade and a half. In the natural and cultural worlds the media of evolutionary transmission behave differently: genes reproduce slowly; ideas reproduce quickly. In the artificial world of the computer, whether modeled on a cultural or genetic metaphor, the medium in which evolution unfolds is the same for both, and the generations through which they both unfold is regulated by same the system clock. Consequently, there is no a priori reason to assume that cultural processes will be quicker than genetic ones in an artificial world, simply because they are quicker in the natural world. Cultural algorithms may be faster, but if they are it is for more complex reasons, such as their richer combinatorial possibilities (ideas may come from anywhere, zygotes only come from couples having sex), their greater range of generational longevity (from fleeting notions to commandments carved in stone), and the varieties of their modes and units of selection. It seems likely that a science of culture may enrich evolutionary computation by offering a superset of evolutionary mechanisms to explore. Evolutionary computation will surely enrich a science of culture by offering a superset of modeling practices. Such a coevolutionary synthesis may be fruitful to explore. Natural and Artificial Culture Empirically, culture is the product of individuals, artifacts, and their interactions at varying levels of complexity. Variation is omnipresent and requires explanation. Cultures are different. Its members are different. Its members' heads are filled with different thoughts. Moreover, cognition is distributed among people and technology. Culture emerges from these objects (thoughts, people, artifacts) through multiagent webs of mutual causation. Cultural processes are parallel and simultaneous. These complexities remain largely intractable to discursive and mathematical representations. The "new sciences of com

B Future Forum, 2019

The future of technology, art, and science in the context of the possible evolution of human consciousness.

Social Inclusion

Along with the increasing awareness about the destructive force of humankind on nature, existential questions about how to create a more sustainable relationship with the natural world have emerged. To acquire a more eco‐friendly attitude, we need to go beyond the well‐established knowledge cultures that highlight a nature versus culture dichotomy. This study focuses on bio art as an epistemic vehicle to re‐imagine our understanding of and connection to the natural world. Drawing on the theoretical stance of philosophical posthumanism, we discuss how artistic co‐creation processes involving humans and other‐than‐humans hold the potential to introduce a shift in our worldview from anthropocentric to ecocentric. We further question what this shift might imply for how we approach the complex relationship between humans and other‐than‐humans in our own research. We conducted a within‐case and cross‐case analysis of five bio art projects that previously won the Bio Art & Design Award (20...

Drexel University, 2014

This dissertation examines the social relationships of material objects (including, but not limited to, humans and things) and idea objects (including, but not limited to, broad cultural and social forces) that constitute the world. In particular, this dissertation focuses on the relationship among humans and nonhumans, and the material and the non-material in the creation of digital art and design. This project is therefore indebted to various recent movements in the social sciences and the humanities that have begun to take more seriously the ways in which "things" impact human life. The "ontological Turn" in philosophy, the "material turn" in anthropological and sociological sciences, the "posthuman" moment in the humanities, and the "Cognitive Archaeology" movement in cognitive science, among others, all share a common thread of critiquing the anthropocentrism of the humanities and social theory. I will forward, then, three major arguments: 1.) That it is often the case, particularly in the social sciences, that scholars look not at non-human objects, but instead at the ways those objects are perceived and labeled by humans/society. Scholars of materiality, then, often miss the mark, and study the conceptualizations of objects at the expense of the objects in of themselves. 2.) That it is theoretically and empirically possible to examine objects in of themselves, and that it is important to do so, as both material and non-material objects contain causal powers that impact history and society independent of the human recognition or conceptualization of these powers. 3.) That objects are also subjects, and engage in intersubjective meaning-making both with humans and other objects. Objects, then, should not be theorized as having various mechanical impacts upon human communities that they interact with, but should instead be theorized as members of the community in of themselves. Non-human entities, in other words, are themselves social beings.

2020

Today, most people spend their lives online: browsing social media, watching cat videos, etc. Some consider this a parallel activity—not part of their 'real' life. But the truth is that today those whose brains have been rewired through their interaction with these technologies are in fact constructing their reality through these systems of representation. One could argue that they seem so intimately attached to those images that even their reality seems post-produced (Steyerl, 2017). On the other hand, this new collective subjectivity offers new possibilities, as they promote the idea that today—as Joseph Beuys predicted—everyone can be an artist (2004), thus assigning a new role to internet shared images and their producers. The challenges that arise from these scenarios are: Can we embrace the creative potential of these apparently meaningless daily activities as the rich material for new collaborative narratives? Can we benefit from these collective productions to promot...

The speed and transformative power of human cultural evolution is evident from the change it has wrought on our planet. This chapter proposes a human computation program aimed at (1) distinguishing algorithmic from non-algorithmic components of cultural evolution, (2) computationally modeling the algorithmic components, and amassing human solutions to the non-algorithmic (generally, creative) components, and (3) combining them to develop human-machine hybrids with previously unforeseen computational power that can be used to solve real problems. Drawing on recent insights into the origins of evolutionary processes from biology and complexity theory, human minds are modeled as self-organizing, interacting, autopoietic networks that evolve through a Lamarckian (non-Darwinian) process of communal exchange. Existing computational models as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Philosophical Psychology, 2021

This paper summarizes, contrasts, and reviews recent accounts of cultural evolution in our species offered by Cecilia Heyes in Cognitive Gadgets, Kevin Laland in Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony, and Michael Tomasello in Becoming Human. Our critical discussion focuses on the authors’ accounts of social learning, and the relationship each hypothesizes between cultural evolutionary and biological evolutionary processes. We find that both Laland and Tomasello seek to explain cultural evolution in humans as reliant upon processes of joint attention and shared intentionality (the development of which is largely the focus of Tomasello’s book). Heyes’ account of social learning, in which no particular role is assigned to human intersubjectivity and the same basic associative learning mechanisms of nonsocial learning are also invoked to explain social learning, stands apart. As to the relation of cultural and biological evolution, Laland offers readers a thorough account of the two with detailed analyses of social learning across various non-primate species, and uniquely, among these authors, attends to the influence of genes on social learning. For his part, Tomasello provides readers with a richly detailed experimental accounting of human-unique forms of social learning using Great Apes as points of contrast.