Anyway, back to Gunkel. I kind of have a problem with his argument that we think in binary. Maybe I’m misunderstanding him, but bear with me. In chapter six Gunkel is comparing machines to humans, and argues that we do not treat machines in the same way we treat humans, and even animals. Machines operate based on algorithms, which in turn are based on the binary system, which, Gunkel argues, is what our thinking is based on. Does this mean that it blurs the line between humans and machines?

About half way through chapter six (140) Gunkel writes that machines need to be taught some sort of ethical behavior, and mentions Asimov’s three laws of robotics which are basically the equivalent of the ten commandments for humans. If a robot breaks one of these laws, it is considered faulty. In one of Asimov’s stories – “Lenny” – a robot is accidentally programmed to have feelings and to be able to learn. This becomes a problem when one of the technicians at the factory tries to scare the robot by pretending to punch it, knowing that it will not violate the first law of robotics, which is that a robot may not injure a human being, but due to “faulty” programming, Lenny defends himself, breaking the technician’s arm in the process. What I find interesting about this is that a robot breaking a rule is a sign of his humanness. He is not just following an algorithm but acts upon his instincts as any human or animal would. The argument in the story was that although Lenny did break the first law, he didn’t break the third law (a robot must defend himself only when it does not conflict with the first two laws) because he didn’t “know” it would hurt the technician. This is no longer binary (e.g. right vs. wrong), but there is quite a bit of gray area and there is room for argument. There is no definite answer whether Lenny broke the third law or not, and this is when it crosses into him being human. So, this is where I have a problem with Gunkel. He argues that binary is how we, humans, think, but this seems to contradict the Lenny story. Sure, it’s science fiction, but I think it makes a pretty good argument. Seems like when a question cannot be directly answered and there is room for argument, this is no longer binary because you can’t firmly say whether the law was broken or not. Like I said, I may have completely misunderstood what Gunkel was trying to say, but this is what I thought of when I read that last chapter.

In his conclusion on p153 Gunkel mentions that “these [binary] terms are not situated on par with each other.” I believe this is true. However he states further down the page “these hierarchical arrangements, no matter how useful and expedient for making sense of and describing the world, have considerable and potentially troubling consequences.” It’s not particularly a case of being ‘useful for… making sense of the world’ but, rather, how we actually make sense of the world. He goes on to say “binary pairings, no matter where they occur or how they come to be arranged, always and already impose hierarchies that make exclusive prejudicial decisions about others.” I have to vehemently disagree with this final statement and thus the ones leading up to it. Binary pairings don’t create hierarchies – humans do based on their bestial grounding. We evolve and make decisions based on what we need to survive – mainly, food.

To clarify; the binary choice made, either 0 or 1, is made because of our current environmental situation. The choice may be good or bad for society. If good, the choice will drive society forward. If bad (which usually means a disassociation from the societies past has occurred), the society will regress and find a different path; Mayan’s became a large society, wrought havoc on the rainforest, and so their society crumbled. The ‘good’ choice is good only good because it allows our species to move forward. I’ll use a male dominated society as example.

To be brief; horticulture society used a hoe to farm – pregnant women could utilize this tool without risk of miscarriage; 80% of the food supply in these societies were produced by women, and thus, 1/3 of these societies had female only deities, 1/3 had mixed sex deities, and women stood on the same level of the social ladder as men (who hunted). In agrarian societies, there was a shift from a hoe to an animal drawn plow. If women used these, they miscarried at a considerably high rate. Over 90% of agrarian societies have only male deities, since men produced all the food. This is the root of the polarization of the sexes; men had muscle, and that muscle was used to sustain life. Due to this men dominated the outside, or the public sphere (politics/religion) and female the inside, or the private spheres (family/home) (the ramifications of which can still be seen in society today – the first female finally for president – a public affair – in 2008). If we leap to industrial we see the machines introduction; a gender neutral method of physical strength. The women’s right movement started (for the first time in history) after that. Although women were ‘down’ or the ‘anti’ in each societal situation (religion stating female being created from man for example) up until the industrial, and even until the present day, the advance in society was still a huge advantage to them.

Gunkel seems caught up in the immediate anti – the fact that women were put down – without reference to the fact that the horticultural means of living was worse than the next (for women and men alike), which was worse than the next, and so on. The most important fact however is to note that in each circumstance it was the biological, the actual human/bestial ramifications of the decisions that created the situation – not that 0 was chosen over 1, but that we, with ego’s, reacted in an biologically driven, human fashion. Gunkel goes into great detail as to how we have attempted to get out of this binary dichotomy but doesn’t reference that perhaps instead of fleeing structured we should flee selves; or rather, advance our selves.

Kant: “The mind forms the world more than the world forms the mind.”
Hegel: “The mind can be conceived as one that has developed.”

Whatever our current worldview, it has limitations; they will be surpassed with further development. Thought and its creation, society and technology, are flowing with the Darwinian current. Society has to make sure to transcend and include every previous worldview, or it could end up crumbling like the Mayan’s (who disassociated from the biosphere). This means that the old worldview isn’t completely wrong or the new one is completely right; merely that we are moving towards a ‘more right’ worldview using the old one as a point of reference (if it wasn’t ‘more right’ it wouldn’t be chosen by evolution). With this new worldview however comes new problems – the solution of the old societal problem creates a new one, and this new problem only becomes cognized as a worldview begins its demise. Thus, we have to begin Thinking Otherwise to question what’s to come.
(That was a bunch of Ken Wilber stuff and other things).

Heidegger suggests that every philosopher has been caught up in a form of humanism due to the failure of questioning the essence of Being; he calls upon trans-metaphysics to holistically combine this binary dichotomy. Zen Buddhism also transcends this dichotomy.

Heidegger is purely objective, discerning truth. Zen is purely experiential, living truth. This essay sheds a whole bunch of light on those vague statements, and talks about how Zen essentially gets at what Heidegger is attempting to get at (link to essay, really good read). Heidegger fails because he doesn’t reach non-dualism; he merely expresses an understanding of its existence. Many say Zen fails because it lacks any real concrete explanation of non-dualism; Zen has however discovered the physical practice required to reach a state of mind beyond that of the current (the dualistic). The experience is much more important.

Gunkil (and virtually every major western philosopher besides Fraud) puts a lot more weight on the intellectualization rather than the experience. To transcend dualistic ways of thought is to transcend our current structure or worldview. According to Zen this would be to transcend ego-consciousness and dualistic though. Tibetan Buddhism calls this ‘bringing the mind home’. Heidegger would say this transition would get us closer to our “Homeland” (die Heimat) – as he says “”What is most appropriate and most precious in the Homeland consists simply in the fact that it is this nearness to the Origin — and nothing else besides.”

We shall all likely have to wait for the chaotic tides of the future to usher in this dramatic change of perception. We have to experience it before it can be fully realized.

The focus of the book seemed to be less of a search for an answer and more about a way at looking at everything differently, leaving our binary thinking in the structuralist dust. If we are to think differently, we must observe, discourse and repeat these things, as Gunkel described it, in an endless abyss.(155)

So how does all of this make sense? I take the lessons learned from Heidegger. The question of the nature of technology will never be answered because technology simply exists. And with each individuated iteration, each revealing of itself, it must be observed. Discourse, like politics, is an endless sea. Sort of.

Gunkel states early in the book that his goal isn’t to join, contribute to, or participate in the already existing debates involving ICT, but “instead to challenge, criticize, and change the terms and conditions by which the controversies have been organized articulated, and configured.”

Gunkel begins chapter one by drawing a parallel between the bits and bites, or the 1’s and 0’s and the contrasting or opposed positions in the digital debate of the “network idealist,” who sees the computer as a digital sandbox and his opponent the “naive realist” takes on the role of digital doomsayer. Gunkel goes on to explain there are 4 ways in which to address or respond to the “binary oppositions or conceptual dualisms.,” (either/or, balance, dialectic, and poststructuralism) and 3 reasons we should attempt to think otherwise (epistemological, metaphysical, ethical).

I found chapter two to be both humorus and interesting. The paradox associated with publishing the demise of the printed page in the printed page amuses me, while I find the evolution of the book as signage and its new role as a delegate or substitute for the present as the current state of publishing. More than a semiotic relationship it appears to be more symbiotic. Books rely on digital to be published and computers rely on books to advance the technology when the technology itself isn’t present.

Chapter 4’s connection between drugs and VR aligns with the late 50’s early 60’s right wing banner that rock and roll is the devils music. I think this chapter would make for great debate at the local pub over beer and munchies.

I guess if I had seen The Matrix I would have appreciated Gunkel’s musings in Chapter 5 over the taking of the blue pill or the red pill but, as it was, it just left me wanting to drink the coolaid. I did appreciate the fact as he said there was a third alternative for thinking otherwise which was not to take any pill at all.

We can basically either accept that we are binary-logic thinkers or do something to change it. Wait, that’s a binary choice. And that’s exactly how he ends the book, with the knowledge that we can’t stop making binary choices. So I’m trying to wrap my head around writing a book called “Thinking Otherwise” in which we learn that we cannot actually think otherwise.

I know, a philosopher’s job is to point out the problems and ask the questions, not to answer questions and solve problems, but there’s got to be more. I’ll hold out for class to perhaps get the information I just didn’t get from the book. (Although, there is TONS of information in the book, so that may have gotten lost in the noise for me.)

Technology has always been at the heart of many arguments as to whether or not it plays a beneficial role in the evolution of man. Gunkel brings up the example of “Neo” from the Matrix trilogy. There we have a world where the machine has taken over humanity by keeping man in a sort of virtual reality state. Neo is given the choice of whether of not he wants to have a shot at living in the real world or whether he would rather just stay in the safe confines of the made up world where if he so wanted, he could be a some what of a god.

Virtual reality is only one of the things that the “naïve realist” fight against in fears that it will only work to draw man away from his own humanity. One fear is that it will blur one’s sense of reality to that of a totally made up world. Now where man has not been totally drawn into a total virtual state, there are things today that definitely act as the same thing. Playing off of my opening statement, there are on-line games that as well be considered a virtual reality.

World of Warcraft or WOW as many call it is one. To some it is only a game, but as of today it has over 15 million subscribers and many of those of those players get so drawn in to the game that they actually have a hard time differentiating the fantasy world from reality. Now where some would argue that it might not be that big of a problem, as we read from chapter 4, games like WOW have already been classified as an addiction and compared on pare as being on something say as bad as LSD. Chapter 4 goes as far to mentioning the comment of “the PC being the LSD of the 90’s.”

Through out Thinking Otherwise, Gunkel keeps the argument open between “the network idealist” and “the naïve realist” by never actually being able to make a conclusion, but you have to wonder whether or not which side may be right. I for one am guilty as any other as to be totally drawn into technology, but I like to think that I have the capable and sensible mind to only view it as tool which I use. I just hope that we haven’t come so far as to where others might allow themselves to view technology as a drug and an out from the everyday activities that man is suppose to go throughout life.

In chapter one, Gunkel leads the reader through an explication of increasingly more sophisticated ways of thinking through the binary relationships that govern the way humans think about the world, and posits the virtual reality debate as a reflection of this thinking. He ends with a measured endorsement of a post-structuralist approach, which, simply put, consists of an endless questioning of seemingly oppositional concepts in order to arrive at what is best termed an “interface”. Thus, in looking at VR, instead of considering two opposing points of view (technological dystopianism vs. utopianism), it is better to look at the shared assumptions that make the two views possible, creating new interpretive possibilities.

In Chapter 4 of the book, Gunkel compares the discourse of digital media and VR to the discourse of drugs, in that they have similar, opposing characteristics: both can offer, on one side, mind expansion and greater intelligence and on the other, addiction and escape from reality. But VR is not the first time this debate has come up—the current debate was not only preceded, but also framed, by the debate over the technology of writing in Plato’s Phaedrus. When Thamus chooses “truth and reality” over the “drug” of writing, he makes the same choice as Neo in the Matrix, who chooses the red pill of “truth” over the blue one of escape from reality. Gunkel’s objection to this opposition is that Plato’s seemingly anti-writing—or anti-technology—treatise was presented in writing.

Throughout this chapter, I was expecting Gunkel to lead me to a place outside of the dichotomies of truth/escapism, utopian/dystopian that characterize approaches to VR and to drugs. I was disappointed when he ended the chapter with this correct objection, one that does not seem radical enough. When we compare writing and virtual reality—the evils in the Phaedrus and the Matrix, respectively—we find that they are two technologies with striking similarities in the ways that they enhance man’s abilities; only one technology (writing) has been internalized, while man’s relationship to the other (VR) is still being negotiated. It seems to me that consideration of this could lead to a questioning of the privileging of material reality, the “truth” that Thamus and Neo choose, over the virtual one.

However, his claim gained complexity as the book went on. Just as Heidegger argued for the necessity that man re-orient himself to technology (as a third alternative to: give up technology altogether OR become standing-reserve), Gunkel also has moments of urgency. He does not share the idealism of a true mediation—throughout the book, he confronts “the extreme and potentially monstrous form of self-reflectivity” tied up thinking otherwise. There is no “pre-programmed exit strategy” (155). The task is never complete, just as the abyss (Derrida might say lacuna) is never filled or closed. The goal, in fact, is not fill or close the abyss. Critique is a critical concept for Gunkel: we can’t rely on “uncritical adherence to nor simple reaction against the digital divide but a critique that exposes and investigates the problems inherent in both” (65) Ultimately, the aim of critique/investigation/inquiry/analysis is to speculate on the possibilities.

When presented with a binary opposition, “The task… is not a matter of simply choosing one or the other but of questioning the structure, necessity, and stakes of this particular and limited set of alternatives” (117). In an earlier passage, Gunkel implies what the goal of such questioning would be: “to learn to use [binary logic] to develop self-reflection” (80). The claim assumes that practitioners of this method have the skills and experience to know HOW to go about practicing it. In reading, I don’t see Gunkel offer much advice about how to conduct the type of questioning he advocates. Though the main intent of his book is not instructional, I struggle to understand why I was implicated in the problem he addresses yet not instructed as to how I could “be part of the solution and not the problem” (excuse the cliché).

Of course, Gunkel openly counters Neil Postman’s argument that “anyone who practices the art of cultural criticism must endure being asked, What is the solution to the problem you describe?” (qtd. in Gunkel 79). I was not satisfied with Gunkel’s dismissive handling of Postman’s comment, which occurs at the end of Chapter 3 on technological determinism and the digital divide. He explains that the goal of critique is not reparation but instead speculation or examination on the range of possible repairs (80)—this sounds a lot like the IBM commercial in which the office staff lie around the floor “innovating.” The slogan: “Stop Talking. Start Doing.” Though, I suppose that for Gunkel and others, talking IS doing.

In a sense, those who want to critique technology are caught in a trap: we are yet forced to investigate the issue of technology while utilizing and the technology itself to conduct and inform the investigation. The topic is the context, and vice versa. Objectivity is an unattainable ideal—we are caught up in the issue the moment we try to speak about it. “The crucial task,” he writes, “ … is not to break free of the circularity” but to recognize the circularity and try to understand its structure” (61). Any activism, then, is futile. It would be like running around a track.

I found this premise, as it is enforced throughout the book, to be exasperating. It is akin to the paradox of a book about digital technology, as Gunkel outlines in Chapter 2. “In the end, what’s the matter with books is that the subject matter of so many print publications … disputes the material in which it actually appears” (58). The reason, of course, lies in the fact that the present moment is defined by a hybrid culture, to use a word from class. Gunkel provides an excerpt of Taylor and Saarinen’s work: “Our dilemma is that we are living at the moment of transition from print to electronic culture” (qtd. in Gunkel 47). In reading this excerpt, I wonder if, almost 15 years after the time of writing Imagologies, we are now even deeper into the transition or perhaps closer to the middle of the transition. In the midst of a cultural shift, there must be some indefinable point when the shift goes from a minority to a majority acceptance of the next age. Can a culture truly be hybrid, balanced with both past age and new age ideologies? But if I articulate this balance as a middle ground between two binaries, as I have just done, I work against the sort of critique Gunkel argues for.