On Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 7:10:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: > > > > On 5/1/2019 4:24 PM, cloud...@gmail.com <javascript:> wrote: > > I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of > > Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it, > > and it will not be conscious. > > Based on what? Human hubris? > > Brent >
A racist is [via Google definition] "a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another". I'm not that, but I do think that different types of matter have different capabilities (as materials scientists do). I am a materialist. On the other hand, the *new materialists* [ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mirroring-and-mattering-science-politics-and-the-new-feminist-materialism/ ] reconceptualize “the terms of social theory, such that the social is seen as a part of, rather than distinct from, the natural, an undertaking that requires a rethinking of the natural too.” In this newly monist view, the proper response to the threat of biological determinism — the claim that biology is destiny or that our fate lies in our genes — is not to reject the natural sciences and assert the primacy of the social, nor indeed to treat the world as text, but rather to grasp the inseparability of the “bio” and the “social,” as captured in the word “biosocial.” In place of a linguistic process of representing the world, the new materialism proposes “mattering” as the generative process through which matter comes into being. *Material stuff — bodies, tools, objects — are understood as imbued with vitality and dynamic force. * This is a philosophical claim, but one that entails a political sensibility. And while materialism is a venerable school of thought, this conception of “mattering” seems, as I have suggested, very much of the moment. @philipthrift -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
