Transcending the caesura: the reading effects of Borges's fiction

This essay explores the assumption that the sense of perplexity and surprise that characterizes the reading of many of Borges's works of fiction is related to these stories' direct and explicit exposition of transitive thoughts transcending caesurae (Bion, 1977). Borges presents a world in which diverse and even contradictory points of view or interpretations coexist. These texts allow for paradox to be acknowledged and to remain unresolved. The author suggests that Borges's writing style, the form of his stories and essays, allows for the containment of the anxiety that the possibility of evolutionary change may create. Borges's works of fiction symbolize the paradoxical nature of the caesura: inner continuity where there appears to be a break After reviewing Bion's concepts of caesura and transcendence of caesura, the stylistic devices that Borges uses in relation to the coexistence of different perspectives or interpretations will be discussed. A psychoanalytical reading of Borges's Theme of the Traitor and the Hero and The South enriches the understanding of processes of failure and success in transcending caesurae. The relevance of the transcendence of the caesura for analytic listening is underscored.     

Powered by Imagination: Nanobots at the Science Photo Library

Nanobots have been a key image deployed in nanoscience and nanofiction. At present nanobots are still largely ‘imaginary’. But what do ‘imaginary’ nanobots look like, how are they visually and imaginatively constructed and what functions are they envisioned to have? And what can such images tell us about the aesthetic and cultural conventions and metaphors that are employed, and expectations and visions created or engineered, in the process of ‘visualizing’ nanoscience and nanotechnology for science and society? To answer these questions images of nanobots available at the Science Photo Library were studied. Nanobots were envisioned as ‘working’ mostly in futuristic domains of health and medicine. Most nanobots were artistically rendered as familiar objects or animals, as fulfilling useful functions in healthcare, rather than as running wild and causing harm. Such images were displayed mostly to engage lay publics with biotechnology and nanotechnology. By selectively using metaphors, images of nanobots tended to assimilate the unknown into the known and the unfamiliar into the familiar. This assimilation invites viewers to react to these images as if nanobots already existed and as if they were normal. Thus the images open up a space for ‘normalizing’ this new, rather speculative technology; it is framed in such a way as to invite public acceptance and even excitement.     

Imaginative Faith: Apocalyptic,Science Fiction Theory,and Theology

Abstract : Both pastors and academic theologians have struggled with the place of apocalyptic language and imagery within the modern worldview. Many have dismissed apocalyptic as escapist and have alleged that it is divorced from the political and social concerns at the heart of contemporary theology and practice. Yet, contemporary critical theorists have overcome similar suspicions about science‐fiction and now embrace it as a unique vehicle for thinking about the ills and the promise of contemporary culture. This essay suggests that within contemporary critical theory one finds useful tools for reading and using apocalyptic language and imagery as a means for engaging a world threatened by sin and violence.     

Michael Hauskeller: Sex and the Posthuman Condition

Science and Engineering Ethics - This new book from Michael Hauskeller explores the currently marketed or projected sex/love products that exhibit some trait of so-called...     

MEMORY ALTERING TECHNOLOGIES AND THE CAPACITY TO FORGIVE: WESTWORLD AND VOLF IN DIALOGUE

I explore the impact of memory altering technologies in the science fiction drama (2016–2020) in order to show that unreconciled altered traumatic memory may lead to a dystopian breakdown of society. I bring Miroslav Volf's theological perspectives on memory into conversation with the plot of Westworld in order to reveal connections between memory altering technologies and humanity's responsibility to remember rightly. Using Volf's theology of remembering as an interpretive lens, I analyze characters’ inability to remember rightly while recalling partial memories of their trauma. In virtue of this examination, I contend that memory altering technologies may inhibit individuals from relational processes of healing, such as forgiveness. Consequently, I argue that this study leads to a richer understanding of the potential that memory altering technologies have for undermining humanity's ability to interact in a relational capacity, specifically in terms of forgiveness.     

The Pleasures of Anticipation: Enriching Intuitionistic Logic

We explore a relation we call anticipation between formulas, where A anticipates B (according to some logic) just in case B is a consequence (according to that logic, presumed to support some distinguished implicational connective ) of the formula AB. We are especially interested in the case in which the logic is intuitionistic (propositional) logic and are much concerned with an extension of that logic with a new connective, written as a, governed by rules which guarantee that for any formula B, aB is the (logically) strongest formula anticipating B. The investigation of this new logic, which we call ILa, will confront us on several occasions with some of the finer points in the theory of rules and with issues in the philosophy of logic arising from the proposed explication of the existence of a connective (with prescribed logical behaviour) in terms of the conservative extension of a favoured logic by the addition of such a connective. Other points of interest include the provision of a Kripke semantics with respect to which ILa is demonstrably sound, deployed to establish certain unprovability results as well as to forge connections with C. Rauszer's logic of dual intuitionistic negation and dual intuitionistic implication, and the isolation of two relations (between formulas), head-implication and head-linkage, which, though trivial in the setting of classical logic, are of considerable significance in the intuitionistic context.     

Jeanine Thweatt-Bates. Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the Posthuman

Abstract

Of all the research programs investigating radical life extension, cybernetic immortality is, by definition, the most ambitious. Several models fall within this category. While some include the possibility of “re-corporealizing” either as machine, biological entity, or hybrid, all models have several essentials in common. They require the ability to construct a non-biological (e.g., electronic) substrate that can model the functioning human brain, including the ability for consciousness (self-awareness) and a means for uploading into this artificial mind the contents of one's mortal life experiences. The individuals who have speculated most comprehensively on this include Ted Chu, Raymond Kurzweil, and Martine Rothblatt.¹1 Relevant books include: Ted Chu, Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential: A Cosmic Vision for Our Future Evolution (San Rafael, CA: Origin Press, 2014); Michio Kaku, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind (New York: Doubleday, 2014); Ray Kurzweil, How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed (London: Penguin, 2013); Martine Rothblatt, Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2014).     

Information,Bodies, and Heidegger: Tracing Visions of the Posthuman

Discussion of the posthuman has emerged in a wide set of fields through a diverse set of thinkers including Donna Haraway, Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, N. Katherine Hayles, and Francis Fukuyama, just to name a few. Despite his extensive critique of technology, commentators have not explored the fruitfulness of Heidegger's work for deciphering the various strands of posthumanism recently formulated in response to contemporary technological developments. Here, I employ Heidegger's critique of technology to trace opposing visions of the posthuman, visions that are both tied intimately to new information technologies. For those seeking to extend humanist ideals, information technologies are employed to extend the vision of an ultra-humanist view of a ‘scientific posthuman’ that dangerously understands the body to be a forfeitable nuisance, rather than an inherent aspect of being human. Along Heideggerian lines, thinkers such as N. Katherine Hayles and Thomas Carlson have developed an alternative trajectory related to Dasein's Being-in-the-world. This trajectory posits the self as constituted by a lack or abyss, enabling the formulation of a ‘mystical posthuman,’ celebrating, rather than forfeiting, humanity's embodied existence.     

The Body and the Sacred in the Digital Age: Thoughts on Posthuman Sexuality

Abstract

Considerable scholarly discussion has been given to the idea that we are moving toward a state of "posthumanism." In this essay, I examine some possible implications of a posthuman existence, specifically as it relates to that most basic of human needs—sexuality. More specifically, I am interested in exploring the spiritual aspects of sexuality to see what is lost and what is gained in technologically mediated forms of sexuality. To that end, I consider the interplay between sexual behaviour and our conceptions of the sacred, how technologies are changing our views of—and realities concerning—our bodies, and the potential for a sacred posthuman sexuality.     

Longing for Life Extension: Science Fiction and Late Life

Rejuvenescence has long been a topic of legend and medicine. As the body became the property of medical science, speculative fiction asked how fantastic experiments with bodies would affect the life course. In science fiction, medical breakthroughs promise or threaten to forestall or even reverse the decline from midlife through old age to senility and decrepitude. Responding to debates over evolution, eugenics, and scientific experimentation with human and animal subjects, rejuvenescence novels such as Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire (1996) ask readers whether they desire long life or heightened quality of life; the consolations of age or the hungers of youth; short-lived intensity or perpetual ennui.     

农村留守儿童的抑郁和反社会行为:日常积极事件的保护作用

以来自河南省农村的410名农村留守儿童(双亲外出和单亲外出)和非留守儿童为被试,考察了日常烦恼这一危险因素与儿童抑郁、反社会行为的关系,并探讨了日常积极事件在其中的保护作用。结果表明,儿童经历的日常烦恼越多,其抑郁和反社会行为水平越高。日常积极事件表现出了对儿童抑郁和反社会行为的改善效应,但是因儿童留守类别的不同而不同:日常积极事件对单亲外出儿童和非留守儿童抑郁的改善效应较强,对双亲外出儿童反社会行为的改善效应较强。此外,日常积极事件还可以有效抵抗日常烦恼对儿童反社会行为的不利影响。     

修复人道与科技的边界

医学领域科技与人道各有其属性特点,存在明显的主次和界限:科技只是实现医学主旨的手段之一,人道才是真正的核心。科技与人道的关系,类同于社会发展与市场经济。市场经济既促进社会发展,也对人权、健康和社会稳定等构成威胁。科技既让医学获得了先进技术,也可能让它逐步丧失了人道本性。显然医学领域对科技的追求已超越人道底线,出现了反次为主的背离。呼吁修复人道与科技边界。     

META‐HUMANS AND METANOIA: THE MORAL DIMENSION OF EXTRATERRESTRIALS

Abstract. Although we do not know whether intelligent extraterrestrials exist, they are a permanent fixture of literature and philosophical argument. Part of their appeal is that they watch us from above and thus serve as a metaphor for human self‐reflexivity. This makes fictional aliens especially useful when moral issues are at stake. In order to evaluate stories about aliens with respect to moral conclusions two conditions must be fulfilled. First, the stories have to be detailed enough that we can understand the circumstances of the aliens' moral choices. Therefore science fiction often is more useful than arguments involving aliens in short technical papers. Second, their fictional lives need to be possible in our own universe, or very nearly so, in order to be relevant for our own moral conduct. Taking as an example the unfallen aliens in C. S. Lewis's novels Out of the Silent Planet (1938) and Perelandra (1943), we can acknowledge the theological interest and literary subtlety. Nonetheless, the stories fail as moral parables in one important respect: The aliens depicted could not be a product of evolution in our universe, at least as we currently understand its scientific laws. This realization has important consequences for our self‐understanding and thus underlines how fictional aliens can be useful in making sense of the complexities involved in moral argumentation.     

Transcending a Differend: Studying Therapeutic Processes Conversationally

Studies of actual conversational behaviours used to generate positive change in family therapy are relatively rare. In this study such conversational details were examined as they occurred in a single session of family therapy. With passages identified by family members as helpful, discursive methods of analysis (conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis) were used to examine an actual conversation between a renowned family therapist (Karl Tomm) and a family formerly at a conversational impasse. Conversational practices and sequences in talk used by the therapist and family members to bridge these differences in their ways of relating are discussed.     

NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND SCIENCE: RAEL'S PROGRESSIVE PATRONIZING PARASITISM

The article examines the concoction of religion and “science” contained in the revelation that substantiates a new religion: Raelianism, founded and led by the prophet Claude Vorilhon/Rael after having received a revelation in 1974. After a detailed examination both of Rael's prophetic message and his/the Raelians’ interpretative practices, an ad hoc model is presented to describe such concoction (“progressive patronizing parasitism”), and it is compared to other models. It is in particular claimed that Rael, while seemingly talking about “science,” is actually constructing a science‐fictional and even pseudoscientific narrative. The article finally raises the question whether the discussion of the science–religion interaction from the viewpoint of traditional religions can be considered to be immune to the usage of such rhetorical devices.     

CREATORS AND CREATURES: THE CREATION ACCOUNT IN GENESIS AND THE IDEA OF THE ARTIFICIAL HUMANOID

Science fiction, this article argues, provides an imaginative domain which can offer a unique understanding of the interaction between science and religion. Such an interaction is particularly present in the idea of the artificial humanoid as brought to life in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the recent television series Westworld. Both revolve around the theme of a moral relation between scientist creator and humanoid creature in accord with a norm that first took shape in the biblical account of God's creation of the first human beings. At the same time, these works of fiction cast light on the contrast between the biblical account and the Mesopotamian myths of creation. In the manner of Frankenstein and Westworld, science fiction can integrate the perspective of science with that of the biblical tradition.