Seminariet “Tes-Antites-Protes” bjuder i samarbete med Glänta till en kväll tillsammans med N Katherine Hayles och gästartister.

Hayles kommer att inleda kvällen under rubriken “Computing the Human”.

2 september, kl 18, Pusterviksteatern, Stora Scenen

Gäster: Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson, poesi; Mono Mono: performance

Entré 30 kr, Gläntaprenumeranter gratis.

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“Computing the Human”: Mathematician Stephan Wolfram has recently proposed that many different kinds of complex systems, including human thought and action, can be modeled using cellular automata. These very simple computational systems have demonstrated that they are capable of generating complex patterns using simple rules. According to physicist Ed Fredkin, cellular automata underlie physical reality on a subatomic level; in his view, nature itself is software running on a Universal Computer.

This presentation will look critically at these claims, asking whether we should consider them as physical models or as over-determined metaphors that would inevitably emerge in a historical period when computation is pervasive. This issue, and its proliferating implications, will be explored through Greg Egan’s print novel Permutation City, which imagines a world in which it is possible to simulate a person’s consciousness inside a computer, creating a Copy that has all the personality and memories of the original.

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Föredraget hålls på engelska.

N Katherine Hayles är professor i engelska och Media Arts vid UCLA. Hayles är sedan länge sysselsatt med att under&söka gränssnitten mellan litteratur, vetenskap och teknologi och hon är en av de ledande teoretikerna inom områden som posthumanism och elektronisk textualitet.