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Selected Works of Dan Mellamphy
Presentation
The Obsolescence of The Human (TOOTH): · · · · · · · · · A Flossoffical Investigation.
Department of Philosophy, University of Guelph (2019)
  • Dan Mellamphy
Link
Abstract
·

The Obsolescence of The Human (TOOTH):
A Flossoffical Investigation
through the Horrorscope,
Enacted on Reticulated Youth (A·FIT·THEORY).

·

The title is a double acronym, ripe-and-ready
for marketing—i.e.capitalist co-option—
and the talk itself will take up (if not take on)
the trajectory of our current-day cyber-situation
or what we have elsewhere called ‘the network-centric condition’
(NCC·1701, Captain: our phase-shift into the post-human dimension).
We will touch upon ‘doublespeak’ in our double-headed keynote,
as well as ‘single speakers’ the likes of the dyslexic Alexa™-
a.k.a.-Echo,™ Cortana,™ Duer,™ Evi,™ Google-Assistant,™
Siri,™ et-cetera—that is to say, we will talk about
double-dealing multi-function tech-tools,
their rapidly-growing usage, and
the «sagesse» of such usage.
In doing so, we hope to demonstrate
the slow or not-so-slow/‘accelerating’ occultation of the human
in ‘human interactions’ at the personal, interpersonal, sociocultural,
civic, state and global levels—indeed the McLuhanesque ‘amputation’
of the human-all-too-human via the mechanism[s] of its modern-day
interactions. The argument, as it unfolds, is that—by extension—
in our use of myriad techno-prostheses we are ourselves
becoming prostheses of tech, and what’s more:
prostheses ‘pushed to the periphery’ at-and-on every level
(personal, interpersonal, sociocultural, civic, state and global),
prostheses less-and-less ‘fit’ for up-to-date actions (all-the-more
out-of-date, in other words). The meat of the matter is this:
the prosthesis of ‘the human as such’—to wax poetic
and poetically problematic—is beginning to bear a resemblance
to bits of food that get stuck in the gleaming technological teeth
of what Samuel Butler years ago saw as a new species (see his
Book of Machines) and what Philip K Dick a-tad-more-recently
reconfigured in the form of the so-called Palmer Eldritch
(see his Three Stigmata). … And ‘lines of code’
make excellent floss.

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PRESENTED BY DAN MELLAMPHY, MAY 2019
#PhilosophyInTheDark2019
Disciplines
Publication Date
April 26, 2019
Location
The University of Guelph
Citation Information
Dan Mellamphy. "The Obsolescence of The Human (TOOTH): · · · · · · · · · A Flossoffical Investigation." Department of Philosophy, University of Guelph (2019)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mellamphy/51/