On Aug 17, 2009, at 2:06 AM, Ken Friedman wrote:

> Dear Jeremy,
>
> Thanks for a thoughtful post. When I wrote, I stated that I didn't
> want
> to argue the meaning of such words as “think,” “know,”
> “intend” or “act.”

actually i was arguing underhandedly for a position in philosophy of
social science that supports actor-network theory and current models
of social science dealing with the idea of assemblages


> I understand your argument about
> intentions and ascribing intention -- this is one of those issues that
> turns on definition, and in great part, it also has much to do with
> the
> research communities in which we take part. So for the purpose of this
> thread, I'm perfectly happy to use the word "desire." A human, a
> dog, or
> an orangutan can desire. A machine cannot desire, and neither can
> software.

I'd disagree. Machinic desires have been written about quite
extensively though.
>
> Of course there is no faculty of intention. Whatever it is that
> "intends" is the same entity that "desires." I wasn't referring to
> specific faculties or organs, but rather to the sentient or knowing or
> feeling creatures that desire and act. And I'd suggest further that
> one
> cannot see or show the "desire" of a person or a dog any more than one
> can see or show their "intention." Either way, we require some kind of
> inference or listening to a report.

actually we can usually measure desire pretty well within the
frameworks in late capitalism. we can see it through actions,
expressions, etc. desire is something somewhat hard to hide i'd
argue, though easy to repress, sublimate, etc.

>
> But here we come to a problem. We can indeed say that a machine or a
> software system is an actant. Interestingly enough, I've been re-
> reading
> George Polti and Vladimir Propp, as well as Algirdis Greimas. This has
> to do with some of Ditte's work on hermeneutics and the Western movie.
> When we move over to Bruno Latour, actant takes a slightly different
> shade -- but, in fact, the problem that I sometimes see in actor
> network
> theory is similar to the problem I see in neo-formalism and some
> flavors
> of structuralism. These sometimes seem to posit a world in systems and
> artifacts are accorded the same ontological status and existential
> privileges as living creatures.

actually it isn't that they are accorded the same... it is that
ontology is about one topic, existence, and there is no difference
there. some ontology creates artificial categories in what exists,
making some greater, like Gods, some lesser like monkeys and some
things still lesser yet. The idea is to say hold on... don't they
all merely exist... or not. If they exist and have ontological
status, then they are the same on that level. Any other differences
that you or I might add are not part of their ontology, but part of
their epistemology or more likely ideology. This is part of the
cleaning up of metaphysics.

> The issue of "agency" has two senses. One sense involves those
> entities
> that act in the world regardless of ontological status, whether
> independent or dependent, whether acting on their own desires or
> serving
> the desires of another actor. The other sense involves the agency of
> those creatures that act as independent agents. The term "agent" can
> take either meaning, and -- in fact -- the very word and concept have
> that ambiguous nature. I possess agency as an independent decision
> maker. I can also serve as the agent of another person who delegates
> responsibility or authority to me as his or her agent.

So all humans are dependent agents in these terms. serving the
desires of another actor or system of actors, social or otherwise
organic group, etc. the problem here is that there is an assumption
built into agency that you can differentiate on this ability to 'act
independently'. However, if you start analyzing social groups using
actor-network or almost any other analytical tool you quickly find a
system of reactions without the 'first cause' type of independent
agency one might hope for. you have 'interactions' much more than
actions or agencies. Now that's not really problematic for a
construction of agency that reduces to action, but if we want to
claim there is a difference between the things in this system then
there are issues because it seems like the data points that would
differentiate dependent and independent are.... all so to speak... in
our head. heh...


>
> What I have tried to say is that an existential being, a living and
> knowing creature able to function as an acting person, can design.

I agree a living knowing/acting creature is able design. I don't
know if a person can, nor the full characteristics of that.

> A
> machine cannot.

it can, and more often than we might care to admit, machines not only
play a part but actually perform acts of designing within
corporations, they do it in exactly the same ways a human would if
humans still performed the tasks that the machine performs, were they
not so slow. Here i'm not just talking of the developmental
creativity of some genetic algorithms either, but things as simple as
representing variations on design, drawing and visualization can be
done by machines and are in some design houses. Like contemporary
machinic architecture styles, there can be more or less of this sort
of thing in any given design organization, but I will agree that there
is usually at least one human being whose responsibility is to
represent the work done to other human beings.


> Because a machine cannot desire or know in any
> responsible sense, it cannot select among preferred states and it
> cannot
> therefore design.

I am not sure here, I know that my computer can select among preferred
states and I'm sure that complex machines can have needs, and we can
understand various things as constructs of machinic desires.

> It may be programmed in some cases to enact design as
> programmed by a designer.

or it may be programmed much like children... if we are to understand
what Ken Robinson says about schooling fallowing someone like Illich

>
> As noted in my earlier post, I understand the value of actor-network
> theory as a thought experiment. Even so, I am not prepared to "start
> treating things in the world symmetrically." Things in the world are
> not
> beings,

actually anything that exist is a being in some cleaner forms of
metaphysics.


> and the world goes seriously out of balance when we ascribe to
> things the ontological status of beings.

doesn't seem to change at all to me.

> This is a world in which an
> automobile is more to be valued than a person -- or perhaps it is a
> world in which the automobiles of a class of wealthy people are more
> greatly to be valued than the lives of another class of people.

that's called capitalism, it already exists.

> It is a
> world in which we have designed cities for the flow of automotive
> traffic regardless the cost to people, even though it became apparent
> over forty years ago that this would soon make our cities unmanageable
> and now unsustainable. When we treat all actants within a system as
> ontologically and ethically symmetrical, we have a world that rapidly
> becomes dysfunctional outside the kind of thought experiment that can
> shed light on how things and people work together in socio-technical
> systems.

It should be noted that the automobile and city design were thought
originally to be great acts of humanism by some of the creators.
they were far before contemporary models of metaphysics, philosophy of
social science, and actor-network theory. That is not to say that
actor-network theory would have encouraged people to look at things
differently, but it might have. It just wasn't around then, so i
cannot say.





>
> If, to use Flichy's words, all technologies are social technologies,
> this does not mean that all technical apparatus are social creatures.
> They are not. A dog, an orangutan, a human being -- these are
> existential beings that can design, and it is for these existential
> beings that we have design responsibility. I may wish to design a
> better
> car, I may desire a better designed car, but I do not design for my
> car.
> In my case, of course, it goes further than that. I chose a place to
> live that permits me to walk to work, so I no longer have a car. But
> if
> I did, my car would be a tool and not a being.

I would disagree... but then to me, tools are very aristotelian
things inseparable from their owners and the owner's wisdoms.

>
> There are deep ethical problems involved in the epistemology of this
> thread, and the ethical problems arise from the ontological status we
> ascribe to beings and to things. A being is a "who." A thing is an
> "it."
> When I ask, "who designs?" I speak of beings.

I understand your construction, but I think it is a very hard
modernism to accept, granted it is one in the world and it is very
powerful, but I also don't think it is necessarily right or correct
about the world. That doesn't mean it isn't useful, it did give us
cars, trains, beer stores, categories of beer, cuisine, etc. It is
excellent at the method of division and differentiation and
description by those means, but... some of those descriptions and
differentiations might not be the best models to follow in all
situations, analytical or not.

and now i go back to grading,


Jeremy Hunsinger
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
Virginia Tech
Information Ethics Fellow
Center for Information Policy Research


Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
-Jules de Gaultier

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