Lecture 9: N. Katherine Hayles, Cognitive Assemblages and Financial Posthumanism

N. Katherine Hayles in her more recent work expands on the work initiated in How We Became Posthuman. Turning her attention to human consciousness she explains how consciousness itself is increasingly distributed across all the technical systems which modulate our behaviour. as Hayles sees it, we have to accept that cognition and human agency are distributed across quite obscure technical networks. The quicker we accept this fact, the quicker we accept that we are not the only cognizers in the world, the better it will be for us all. This is why her work Unthought continues, to undermine the idea of human exceptionality. Rather, we need to embrace the idea that the majority of cognition is in fact nonconscious. Once we do this, we will be able to attune ourselves more clearly to the technological world we inhabit. Here, I will explain how Hayles distinguishes between consciousness and nonconscious cognition. Subsequently, I will outline how Hayles theorises how nonconscious cognition intersects with technology. I will go on to show two of Hayles’ case studies that illustrate the dangers and possibilities inherent to what Hayles calls cognitive assemblages.

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