Becoming our own intelligent designers? A consideration of our possible cosmic development

As usual, it takes me a while to get back to topics I'd previously mentioned I might post on. Other commitments are always to blame. It was still quite a year for the Acheron team. We realized a dream of seeing Laurie Anderson performing live at the Sydney Opera House. We also took in China Mieville giving a live reading of selections from his latest book, Kraken. Fascinating as each was in their own right, for me it is always best when things can be brought together, rather than be treated as discrete episodes to be judged on their own respective merits.

Mieville mentioned how he uses Samuel Delany in his creative writing class at Warwick University. Derridata in turn leaked this information to one of Delany's confidants, and "Chip" himself was eventually tipped off! Great as that was, I was particularly interested in how Mieville briefly situated himself in relation to Lovecraft. He mentioned spending more time of late in Providence to get a "feel" for the place, so no doubt we'll soon see what dividends that yields for his upcoming "weird fictions". More forgivingly than was generally Lovecraft's want, Mieville also professed his atheism, while at the same time distancing himself from the "celebrity atheism" of Dawkins et al-- conceding that faith can play a positive role in some people's lives. In contrast, Lovecraft only begrudgingly allowed that Catholicism could inform aesthetics in a worthwhile sense.

Given Mieville's involvement in an upcoming academic conference called Spaces of Alterity, I'm wondering whether he or the other participants will be willing to build upon the aforesaid comments by considering how "the sacred" could inform conceptions of "counter-hegemonic space". I'm thinking here of those who have considered how our planet can be rethought by grounding "the possibility for a Global Ethic that will provide hospitality to all aliens, near and far". The relationship between "the sacred" and "astrobiology" appears set to become an ongoing concern. If you check out the website, you can see that Laurie Anderson was involved too. I mention this fact in part because it is suggestive of a certain consistency to the cultural tastes and interests of the Acheron team as well.

I would describe Anderson as a progressive artist, but whenever I find myself becoming more pessimistic about our prospects for venturing very far, I feel closer to Lovecraft. Afterall, his stories were predicated on panspermia bringing the human race into contact with higher civilizations that were indifferent to us. At no time did he suggest that we could ourselves learn to direct the process to progressive ends. In contrast, Meot-Ner and Matloff in effect follow Carl Sagan and Francis Crick by suggesting that panspermia could be used to create a "Noah's Ark" to save species threatened by changes to Earth's ecosystem, or even changes to the solar system, such as the death of the sun.

Once you start following these debates, you soon realize that any receptiveness to such notions is dependent on how you interpret "the sacred":

Should this "sacred" quality slow or stop all our attempts to control, modify or manipulate life, or to use it for cosmic development? These questions strike me as judicious, but are also associated with the notion of transgression as presented by the French philosopher Roger Caillois (Caillois, 1939); in this sense, the human being is prompted and encouraged to become fully aware of the act he commits, so as to choose not to act.

I find it ironic then (during my more optimistic, or rather, "utopian" moodswings) that even the proponents of the "selfish gene" theory will attempt to appear responsible by urging us to adhere to the cautionary principle: i.e. notwithstanding natural selection, we are not just driven by our genes, insofar as we are also cultural beings that must be held accountable for our choices and acts. But if the end result is merely a deferential attitude to the order of Nature, how desirable is it really? Surely the greater challenge is to think of how directed panspermia could forge cosmic development as a counter-hegemonic practice; a space irreducible to privatisation, commodification, homogenisation etc? I anticipate that the "Spaces of Alterity" conference will reference Nick Dyer Witheford's Games of Empire, which envisions gaming environments as an example of such spaces. That is fine, as far as it goes. But it stops well short of the ambitious economy of scale Kim Stanley Robinson has in mind when he presents terraforming as a utopian project. To my mind, this distinction makes Robinson the most important science fiction author working today.

For some, building on an impetus for terraforming/directed panspermia will mean hitching the Intelligent Design wagon to Fred Hoyle's The Intelligent Universe. I understand the basic reasoning, which would aim to show the continuity between us taking control of cosmic development and the will of God. In a comparable vein, the conjoining of Islam and science fiction is notable. Others, such as Robinson, are likely to be more muted so far as any specific privileging of religion per se is concerned.

Be this as it may, this group would probably, at least in principle, broadly assent to us collectively becoming our own "intelligent designers". This is light years away from the central message of Lovecraft (and arguably much of "weird fiction" as well) or what is for many the classic sci fi movie of all time-- 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just watch the Flash animation in Part IV and you'll see what I mean.

I won't speculate any further then about what I'd like to see featuring in the "Spaces of Alterity" conference. So I'll just reiterate that I enjoyed China Mieville's talk. Kraken inspired me to create an image of Cthulhu laying waste to Sydney. I'm also posting a few pics of China giving his reading.

To lose planetary contact and soar into the void

My previous post quoted Ridley Scott talking about how the Alien prequel will prominently feature terraforming. I don't know to which end yet, but his tantalising comments have ensured that terraforming has weighed heavily on my mind of late. As a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson, I nurture progressive dreams of what we could accomplish on Mars, but there is another side of me that is more pessimistic. I've been watching the new series Voyage to the Planets (not to be confused with the similarly titled American and British programs) and I find myself becoming very enthusiastic about what we are now able to observe, only to then experience the disappointment of how tantalisingly out of our grasp anything more ambitious appears to be. I just can't see enough marshaling of collective will, capital and expertise, in my lifetime at least, for terraforming to become a practical reality. Indeed, I scoffed the other day when I came across an old issue of The Good Weekend supplement of the Sydney Morning Herald circa 1986, which dutifully reported that "Soviet and American scientists agree that Moon colonies should be fully operational by 2010"!! I dare anyone to watch the Mars episode, letalone the upcoming one on Jupiter- to get an idea of how inhospitable these planets are (not to mention inaccessible)- and retain your confidence that you will be a witness or participant in something truly miraculous. I suspect that, like me, you will experience a sense of Lovecraftian "cosmic horror", in the full knowledge that we will [probably] not venture very far.

The conflict arose in me at an early age. I read Lovecraft as a teenager, which afforded me, like everyone who reads him, a glimpse of the horror lying beneath the placid surface of everyday life. When I was 17 though I came across sociology for the first time, and I started to grow more balanced as per the Gramscian ideal of "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will". There was one book that really did it for me: I started to appreciate that power was immanent within society itself (rather than alien beings, mysterious forces or whatever), and this meant that it could be called to account. The Two Faces of Deviance was written by a criminologist, and it critiqued liberal "band aid" type solutions by using the analogy of someone standing on a riverbank who catches a glimpse of what he thinks might be a person drifting by. Every time he dives in to rescue someone, another appears. Realising that he can't continue in this fashion, the man resolves to walk upstream to discover the source of the problem so he can stop it from happening. In other words, he gains an appreciation of structural violence by treating causes, rather than mere symptoms.

I like to picture sociologists and [future] terraformers alike adhering to this operating principle. But the character Anselmo Quemot in Asimov's The Naked Sun, a sociologist by trade, reminded me that a lack of institutional structure can foster anomie and a sense of losing control. This was really brought home to me after playing Half Life. I never fully comprehended the structure driving events. The irony here had to do with the fact that, as Richard J Hand points out in his "Proliferating Horrors: Survival Horror and the Resident Evil Franchise", this genre draws on Lovecraftian archetypes, but returns to the player a sense of control by allowing them to manipulate the environment to their own ends, as they gradually penetrate the heart of the mystery driving the storyline. Ever since, usually once a week, I have a dream reliving the part of Half Live where the player passes through an enormous underground cavern at the base of a research facility. Some kind of gigantic turbine is slowly rotating, with the sound of the machine punctuated by the ripping apart of bodies in its mechanisms. As you look up, you see bones, along with blood and gore, raining down.

What kind of an infernal machine is this? No answer was forthcoming, even once I completed the game. I feel this dream is a foil to the redemptive model of rationality I had earlier taken from The Two Faces Of Deviance. The fact that I still haven't solved the mystery feeds the compulsion to repeat; this serial logic sees me constantly adding new aural and visual elements to the dream. Most recently I passed by the Half Life machine, and heard the echo of power electronics style vocals coming from above, like what you would typically hear in the work of William Bennett and Kevin Tomkins. These were harsh commands, screams or whispers, that I was unable to decipher (hence heightening the sense of mystery).

Please note though, I am not saying that my survivalist fantasies have taken over my life, only that they sometimes furnish the pessimistic component of my Gramscian equilibrium. There's no total commitment to tragedy here. And yes, I have read The Influencing Machine and am fully aware of its significance when mapping what Seltzer describes as "the body machine complex". Hopefully my thinking is reflexive enough to treat it as an imaginative extrapolation, rather than the deus ex machina Viktor Tausk associated with schizophrenia.

This corpse grinding machine, along with my fascination for the Space Jockey mythos, may suggest an intuitive foothold on the meaning of cosmic horror. There's also some great passages in Perdido Street Station that are highly evocative of the mysterious torture associated with infernal machines. By the way, don't bypass the bleak aesthetic of films such as Moon. All well and good. I'm left wondering though: could it be that cosmic horror opens the floodgates to another malady of being? Any sense of bounded selfhood is liable to collapse because cosmic horror implies that the project of autonomy, characteristic of modernity, is revealed to be illusory. In this vein, recall the opening 6 minutes of Saturn 3: a motiveless and unfeeling act, problematising any distinction between an individual and his remote environment...Roger Caillois described a comparable syndrome in terms of the predatory behaviour of certain species, such as a mantis paralyzing its prey. Caillois speaks in terms of mimicry and legendary psychasthenia:

Dark space envelops me on all sides and penetrates me much deeper than light space, the distinction between inside and outside and consequently the sense organs as well, insofar as they are designed for external perception, here play only a totally modest role." This assimilation to space is necessarily accompanied by a decline in the feeling of personality and life. It should be noted in any case that in mimetic species the phenomenon is never carried out except in a single direction: the animal mimics the plant, leaf, flower, or thorn, and dissembles or ceases to perform its functions in relation to others. Life takes a step backwards.

I think of Caillois sometimes too while listening to the music of Darkspace. Unlike most "black metal", their focus is on the cold and bleak description of space. I read their work accordingly as a commentary on how legendary psychasthenia opens up in such lethal spaces after bearing witness to cosmic horror. Which is to say, their music:

"...does what most Depressive/Ambient/Suicidal Black Metal fails to do. It is a preview of death, as Atheism perceives it. No thoughts, no feelings, no emotions, nothing. Gravity withdraws itself and the void opens up".

I'm fascinated as well by the fact that a neoclassical darkwave group, such as Black Tape for a Blue Girl, could morph into a side project called As Lonely As Dave Bowman (referencing the character from 2001: A Space Odyssey). Again, a very cold aesthetic, albeit imbued with a touch of pathos.

That's probably enough for today. You're now free to judge for yourself if the cosmic horror and/or Caillois labels fit everything I've referred to. As for me, I'll wander off to check if a soundtrack takes shape in my mind as I watch the Jupiter episode of Voyage to the Planets tonight. Derridata once offered a description of the following track entitled "Black Star" by the Modified Toy Orchestra that is much in the spirit of what I've tried to convey here:

"it's a couple of guitar chords played from a toy with a guitar sound chip (the Texas Instrument voice embedded in the track repeats "you found a black star") but put through a reverb and it sounds so celestial, so crystalline like an alien transmission signalling through cosmic echoes of background noise pulsing through the void".

Political Geographies of Mars: A History of Martian Management

An encouraging quote from Christy Collis's article about satellites and GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit):

"My experience as a Space cultural theorist demonstrates that this experience of the lack of understanding of the centrality of space at times leads to condemnation of Space scholarship: when people are starving on Earth, I've been scolded, how can you morally justify sitting around thinking about Outer Space...Yet, Space is imbricated into our lives, our social organization, our cultures, and the power politics of the world."

She certainly makes a convincing case, noting how military usage of these networks amounts to around 40%. Of course, these public voices/private interests, encompass a lot more than that:


I'm also impressed by how Collis extends her conception of Space in ways that could complement the radical imagination of Kim Stanley Robinson. This is the abstract of an article she co-authored with Phil Graham, which appeared in Management and Organization Theory (4, 3, 2009, pp 247-261):

"The task of this article is to provide an analysis of the uneven terrain of Martian political geographies in the context of western political economic trajectories. Focusing on debates over the nature of Mars’s legal status, the article attends to a key question, a question that has not yet been answered: should Mars be a terra communis — the common property of humanity, unavailable as private property — a terra nullius — or space available for private property claims — or a ‘cosmic park’ space of intrinsic value? That is, should Mars be claimable space, and if so, how could it be transformed into a possession, and by whom? By outlining arguments both for and against the idea of Mars as available for claiming and colonization, the article demonstrates that when it comes to Mars, the historical processes of imperial and capitalist management and organization of ‘new’ spaces are not the only options available for humans’ relationships with Mars".

J.G. Ballard

The occasion of Ballard's passing is clearly not the most opportune time to attempt any critical appraisal of his legacy; that would be churlish, bad taste. Although each of us on this blog have been reading him for over 20 years, it must also be acknowledged that this is considerably less time than many of his most hardcore fans.

So rather than attempt to compare and contrast him with any sociological paradigms (say the Glasgow Media Group's position regarding media "effects" research, Raymond Williams on mobility, the "shrinking island" of British modernism etc), I'll take the opportunity instead to highlight a piece that successfully downplays the more common "postmodern" association of Ballard's work with Jean Baudrillard. There may also be scope within said piece to qualify to some extent Burling's Marxist evaluation of Ballard as representative of the first generation of "new wave" sci fi.

In so doing, however, I mean no disrespect to Bill Burling, who was obviously a wonderful teacher and an astute critic. I recommend following this link to investigate Burling's legacy, which includes a close association with Kim Stanley Robinson, leading to this upcoming title.

In any case, here is the passage from Burling's text which really captured my attention:

British SF over the past four decades often engages with socialist and even Marxist thematics, which may be said to begin with Michael Moorcock’s assumption of the editorship of the magazine New Worlds in 1964. Encouraging the pursuit of experimental and radical social critique in SF, Moorcock published what would in due course become an impressive generation of Left SF authors and their followers, including Brian Aldiss and J. G. Ballard. Taking William Burroughs as their literary inspiration, the first “new wave” SF evinced a latent Left position, that is, one advocating Left views of consciousness but not highlighting the requisite socio-economic components. A second wave was, however, depicted manifestly Left extrapolations: Iain Banks’ “Culture” novels, such as Consider Phlebas (1987) offer an extended post-scarcity, left socio-techno vision; Ken Macleod actively engages Marxist ideas in the “Fall Revolution” series, as in The Star Fraction (1995); and China Miéville’s remarkable and generically innovative “Bas-Lag” series incorporates an extended meditation on Left political and social issues, most clearly in Iron Council (2004).

Of special and final note is the work of two recent women authors. Tricia Sullivan’s Maul (2003) vigorously interrogates social and political issues in her depiction of a near future, but non-utopian, world administered solely by women. Also important is Gwyneth Jones’ Bold as Love (2001), winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the ensuing namesake series: Castles made of Sand (2002), Midnight Lamp (2003), Band of Gypsies (2004), and Rainbow Bridge (2005). Jones near-future depiction of the U.K., originally sketched out in a short story in 1992, grapples with gender, political, economic, social, and environmental issues emerging from the breakdown of the capitalist status quo and the resulting revolutionary possibilities. The novel sequence aggressively challenges the reactionary dystopian bent of much SF by presenting a plausible utopian vision grounded on Left-based values emphasizing shared resources and decision-making. Jones’ work thus stands as one of the most important contemporary works of Left SF.

Even this short and admittedly selective survey demonstrates the essential interconnection between SF’s representations of the production and consumption of technology and the resulting implications as theorized by Marx and later Left thinkers. While only a few SF works have manifestly engaged the concomitant and irrepressible social, political, and economic issues inherent in their alternative worlds, every SF story, film, or television show bears the latent burden of ideological commitment.

Cold weather tourism

Before I went on holiday, I made brief reference to the topic of "extreme tourism". There I hinted at a possible rapprochement between the society as "camp" or "ballardian" and more empirically robust accounts of such zones in the academic field of tourist studies. I'm greatly impressed by what I've seen so far in the field of nissology ("Island Studies") as a possible suitable candidate. Particularly noteworthy is the series of related questions posed in relation to "extreme tourism", with a focus here on "cold weather tourists".

If these are partly methodological issues, then I see Island Studies as a vehicle for escaping the traps found in the kind of "cultural theory" that dominates the blogosphere (which I prefer to call the noosphere in this case), and, to a lesser extent, cultural studies in its more formal academic settings. I've previously mentioned how the "fish scale model of omniscience" provides a ready explanation for the ubiquity of Continental philosophy in the "noosphere". If the problem there is an inflated, abstract, grand mode of theorising, at the other end of the scale, difficulties can accrue where large scale empirical verification requires greater team project work. What this can mean in practice is that the team of researchers can more easily become beholden to the wishes of their sponsors, thereby denuding the work of critical content. In other words, it becomes a question of economies of scale.

The appeal of so-called "middle range" theorising lies in navigating between these extremes. Given my [oft stated] reservations about actor network theory, I am unhappy whenever I encounter attempts to frame it as a form of middle range theory. However, I believe there is still something good about such conversations taking place, as they at least imply a degree of reflexivity on the part of the authors about what and how they are doing something, and the kinds of problems that might arise as a result. Again, this characteristic is largely absent in the noosphere, which is why I refer to that method repeatedly in this blog in terms of its being "an avant garde formalism". While not couched in exactly these terms, a very good explanation of middle range theory, reflexivity, descriptive and normative critique, can be found here, which teases out the full implications of the issues I'm trying to raise. 

An example of the kind of work that interests me is using reflexivity in conjunction with the "key questions" raised in nissology in relation to "cold weather tourism" (as per the above link). So rather than just do a typical noosphere style "mash up" of, say, Fred Jameson and Slavoj Zizek, this alternative method offers the promise of elucidating the reflexivity of authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson. For example, how may a text such as Antarctica be construed as a reflexive commentary on the "key questions" raised by nissologists when discussing "cold weather tourism"?

What may start to emerge is a sense of reflexivity where this means a fluid conversation between theory and empirical work (and one should remember that Robinson heavily researches the subject matter of all of his novels to the fullest extent possible, in addition to foregrounding how the context is mediated by particular, and often conflicting, world views).  Perhaps a nissologist could justifiably apply said method to other texts as well, such as Herzog's documentary Encounters at the End of the World? To convince me otherwise, you would have to explain in detailed methodological terms why it was not possible in principle (and I would take a lot of convincing).

I also see it as an interesting way of expanding "key question" number 3 in the study of "extreme tourism". Consider then the compatibility with Fred Jameson's discussion of the connotations of "extreme cold" on page 268 of his Archaeologies of the Future, where he notes how the loss of physical autonomy in a harsh environment equates also to a loss of psychic autonomy. This makes the layers of insulation a cold environment necessitates stand in contrast to the tropics, where heat:

 "...is conveyed as a kind of dissolution of the body into the outside world, a loss of that clean separation from clothes and external objects that gives you your autonomy and allows you to move about freely...." 

Or so it would seem...afterall, maybe it is wrong to say something opposite is at stake here, so that the cold environment would necessarily consolidate a more autonomous, survivalist personality. In situations such as these, what could scandalize the typology is that section of Cyclonopedia, which discusses "openness" and the "outside". It is seemingly the act of resistance, the attempt at maintaining autonomy, that can make for a strange attractor for those forces that may affect a transformation into something else. Think here of that quintessential "body horror" film, John Carpenter's The Thing, and note then how Jameson's terms such as "dissolution" can be equally applicable in the "cold weather" setting. However, I don't see this as troubling the nissology paradigm, as "question 3" is posed as an open question, and must be tested and contextualized in relation to the other listed key questions. Any problem in this instance would seem to relate more to Jameson than nissology per se, which is more equally balanced [than Jameson] in terms of receptiveness to empirical, case by case studies.

Some more thoughts on "carbon chauvinism" & related issues

It feels like time is conspiring against me. I doubt I'll have time to post some stuff I had planned before I take off on Feb 11th; not least clarification of my misgivings about actor network theory (and whether it was possible to draw any inferences from that in regard to speculative realism). All I had time for yesterday was some minor tweaking of the "carbon chauvinism" post. Let's just say for now that the crux of the matter is speculative realism's questioning of the equation: ontology = politics. I am not saying that philosophers such as Harman respond in the same way as actor network theory, but anyone wanting to learn more about ANT's incoherent treatment of these relationships, is advised to read Andrew Feenberg's incisive critique. What I would like to know though, which will require reading his book on Latour, is why Harman was so attracted in the first place to Latour when his shortcomings are so readily apparent? What allowance can be made for these shortcomings without succumbing to the dreaded sin of philosophical cherry picking?

There are a few other things which bother me too. Robert Fine's point in "What's Eating Actor Network Theory?" is well taken (sadly the freely available version has disappeared from the web) when he argues that ANT tends to fluctuate between minute descriptions of the particular and rather abstract generalizations about all networks. So I'm wondering how readily speculative realism equates to the first part (since it in effect renounces networks for the sake of focusing on the "objects themselves") of this description. For example: dust mites, anyone? (if you recall the example used in the link to an article on speculative realism in my "carbon chauvinism" post).

I suppose one possible response to this line of questioning would be remind the sociologist that it is the absence of human mediation that defines the "alien" nature of the entitites falling under the rubric of speculative realism. To be sure, this blog has touched on "alien" modes of theorizing, in posts such as "Some Kind of Monster", which focused on the meeting of deconstruction and systems theory, and in a separate discussion of Kodwo Eshun's More Brilliant Than the Sun. Anyone who spends enough time poking around Harman's blog will soon discover in abundance various links to the likes of Steve Shaviro holding court on H.P. Lovecraft's fiction as providing a touchstone for understanding how the roots of horror can be traced to the "indifference" of "the Ancients" to human endeavours (I'm puzzled though as to why Shaviro would not construct an argument clarifying his position by engaging with other works that touch on comparable concerns, such as, for example, Noel Carroll's Philosophy of Horror). Fascinating to be sure, but how exactly do such fictional works explicate the "realism" of a host of other "objects" more likely to inspire indifference or accusations of triviality on the part of humans, once they garner some inkling of their existence? Once you start to think along these lines, it becomes harder to suppress the feeling that Lovecraft provides a dramatis personae for a field of inquiry where otherwise not a great deal appears to be going on. Moreover, to be logically consistent, no great "discovery" could be permissible, or the philosophy would risk compromising its own "speculative" nature. Such dilemmas remind me of the performative contradiction Adorno was ensnared by when he yearned for the "lost immediacy" of Nature (as chronicled so brilliantly by Steven Vogel in Against Nature: The Concept of Nature in Critical Theory).

Of course, appearances can be deceptive, and my questions are intended to be more exploratory than critical [at this stage]. As per the "carbon chauvinism" post, colonists need have no awareness of xenobiology, from which it would follow that anything they don't already know about, will probably not be considered worthy of space probing and exploration (i.e. it will be treated as trivial, so they will remain indifferent to it). Under such conditions, objects may be able to retain a modicum of autonomy from human intervention. But I was also hinting at how speculative realism could [inadvertently] serve as a sensitising device by which such colonists could develop an awareness of things that may otherwise have escaped their attention. At that point the respective parties would feel obliged to bite the bullet, by making a binding decision about which direction they wanted to go (I regard Robinson's Mars Trilogy as providing a credible template for their available options).

There is a sense therefore in which it seems philosophers could feel justified in accusing me of doing theoretical violence to their work. At best, I might be viewed as arguing at cross purposes with them. Or so it would seem. By contextualising speculative realism via astrosociology, I am actually more interested in reinforcing the social epistemological imperative of epistemic justice. The basic reasoning here is that everyone needs to be held accountable to a higher standard than the intended consequences of their actions/works. I referred to Steve Fuller on previous occasions as his work demonstrates a scepticism about the manner in which the interpretive community of continental philosophers conduct their business in the form of an internal conversation. The implication is that there is something self serving, or at best naive, about the following kinds of statements. Consider then how Alphonso Lingis expounds on the rationales behind philosophical reflection:

"Did not Nietzsche say that philosophy is the most spiritual form of the will to power? ...Philosophy is abstract and universal speech. It is speech that is not clothed, armed, invested with the authority of a particular god, ancestor, or institution, speech that does not program operations and produce results, speech barren and destitute. ...Then what is distinctive about philosophy is not a certain vocabulary and grammar of dead metaphors and empirically unverifiable generalizations. One's own words become philosophy, and not the operative paradigms of a culture of which one is a practitioner, in the measure that the voices of those silenced by one's culture and its practices are heard in them" (Abuses, p. ix, 1994).

A seductive conceit, to be sure, but I remain unconvinced that it has quite succeeded in escaping the problematical aspects of the discipline Lingis mentions in passing (which I've placed in italics.) Adorno, for example, identifies the flip side of the same coin. In Negative Dialectics he is describing the sense in which there can be something fatuous, and even opportunistic, about the reading "method" adopted by those philosophers whose interests wax and wane as if they were a fashion statement:

"No theory escapes the market anymore: each one is offered as a possibility among competing opinions, all are made available, all snapped up. Thought need no more put blinders on itself, in the self-justifying conviction that one's own theory is exempt from this fate, which degenerates into narcissistic self-promotion, than dialectics need fall silent before such a reproach and the one linked to it, concerning its superfluity and randomness as a slapdash method. Its name says to begin with nothing more than that objects do not vanish into their concept, that these end up in contradiction with the received norm of the adaequatio."

These tendencies have only accelerated with the growing bifurcation between so-called Mode One and Mode Two knowledge. Hence the importance placed by Fuller on the university as a social technology for the distribution of knowledge as a public good. Consistent with his call for epistemic justice, Fuller is urging the protection and enhancement of the founding democratic characteristics of the university, which ensure that knowledge can be put to use outside of its institutional context by people [students] who had nothing to do with its original production. This is another salient reminder of why academics need to be mindful of epistemic justice. By extension, philosophy cannot remain a self legislating activity, in the manner prescribed by Lingis.

I would also point toward the theory of articulation: you have to start with where people are before you can move them somewhere else. This is politics as the art of the possible, implying a long march through the institutions. Sadly though, I followed enough of the links through Harman's blog to discover that the continental blogosphere is generally more entranced by theories of total opposition, hence placing great store by new social movements. But I don't see why a "post hegemonic" politics need be the exclusive option. This was reinforced when one man had done commenting on Shaviro's Lovecraft post, and then threw in, on his own blog, almost as a casual aside, that he had no time for consensus conferences!! But why marginalise a social democratic approach that has a proven track record in creating public awareness of "post normal" science? What's wrong with having those affected by a particular form of knowledge sitting on judgement as to its applicability, say, in the communities where they live? And why couldn't consensus conferences be a catalyst for other forms of activism, including social movements?

Suffice to add, it was the random nature of the blogosphere in these instances that led me to revisit Kim Stanley's vision, as this is closer to my preferred form of "speculative realism". For not only does it encompass the cluster of issues I've raised here, but it does them justice in terms of the breadth and depth brought to bear upon each.

It also reminds me of why I need to experiment with another forum in order to test some of these propositions in relation to astrosociology. I'll leave the door open, just in case any philosophers choose to reply as they see fit, but I learned early on, in my encounter on this blog with a philosopher of "ruins", the possible limitations of such exchanges. I also know not to expect too much when "transmitting warning signals from the outermost rim of the information grid." As it happens, I've got a whole bunch of other commitments about to land on me, so while there's time, I'll have to try to commence work on these other writings. I suspect my blogging will probably atrophy as a result. There is still so much other more compelling stuff to follow up on, including arguments about the "speculative" nature of either evolution or Intelligent Design. For here is a public debate with high stakes, a lot of passion, and complexity to burn.....

Carbon Chauvinism

Reading the various astrosociology manifestos yesterday, a few other conjunctions started to occur to me. What will happen when/if astrosociology starts becoming more attentive to astrobiological concerns? (to some extent this blog draws impetus from both sociological/biological concerns) Uncovering new astrobiological lifeforms would most likely be the precursor to later colonisation of alien worlds, followed by terraforming. This raises a whole swag of ethical questions.

By way of an instructive example, I've read Robinson's Mars Trilogy, and like ahuthnance, was appreciative of the representation of the indigenous Martians. The colonists are seemingly not aware of a lifeform so exotic that it escapes detection by their traditional methods of collecting specimens for the sake of arranging them into scientific taxonomies. Of course, there are "Green" colonists who favour terraforming with some qualification, and Robinson attempts to portray a viable "Blue" political compromise between "Red" and "Green" factions.

Looking then at Robinson's colonists, it is apparent that there were varying degrees of "carbon chauvinism" among the groups, insofar as there was divided opinion as to whether they could know where to search for xenobiological lifeforms; and by extension, whether it was still worth attempting to make some allowance for them in regard to space probe and mission planning. What kind of a philosophical conceptual vocabulary would be required then to do justice to the possible existence of such truly "alien" life forms? I'm wondering if so-called "speculative realism" presents as a suitable candidate, at least to the extent it may foreground the significance of, "non human worlds, by the interactions of dust mites in a carpet as much as by the dark sides of planets on which no human foot will ever tread". I regard it as equally important though to also consider the willingness of its adherents to nominate the appropriate circumstances under which "no human foot will ever tread" must become more prescriptive in tone .i.e. "no human foot should ever tread".

If this happened, what kind of a politics could be licensed? To my mind the possible answers sound a lot like the "astro" version of Deep Ecology, as portrayed by Robinson (as distinct from the positions held by many who would quite consciously identify themselves as astrobiologists, as distinct from xenobiologists, who are their Deep Ecology methodological relatives). Another concern is how a practitioner of "speculative realism" such as Graham Harman displays an elective affinity in his thought with actor network theory, some of the inherent problems of which (i.e. of ANT, not Harman specifically) have already been discussed elsewhere on this blog. Notwithstanding his stated differences from Latour et al (as referred to in the above piece on speculative realism), my principal concern in each case is the implicit downsizing of human agency. To what end should we be willing to adopt such a working assumption? So, if astrosociologists wish to ask such appropriately social scientific questions of these philosophers, it might be wise to follow some of the guidelines in my earlier post on Mark Bold.

In other words, I am attempting to foreground the significance of astrosociology as a sociology of anticipation: will we see a time in which it becomes necessary for astrosociologists, astrobiologists (along with xenobiologists), to sit down with "speculative realists" to discuss possibilities together? Harman refers to "the open" in his discussion of the future, and I am wondering if it may eventually be circumscribed by the kinds of scenarios described in Peter Dickens et al's book, The Cosmic Society (already anticipated to a certain extent by Robinson's fiction). Afterall, Harman appears to be ascribing a potentially contestatory power to "the open":

"neither Bhaskar nor DeLanda quite solve the problem with their colourful mist of catalysts and multiple causal factors. The complexity of such factors may lie beyond our own understanding, but not beyond that of a deity or a malevolent supercomputer. Some new approach is required to find openness amidst the turmoil of linear causes".

Until this approach materializes, I can at least amuse myself with this short adaptation of Terry Bisson's Nebula Award nominated story, They're Made Out of Meat. Although the story has inspired philosophical reflections on "carbon chauvinism" in its own right, (as some quick crossreferencing on Wikipedia will confirm), at present I have no knowledge of dialogues taking place with the recent school of "speculative realism", letalone earlier thinkers such as Carl Sagan (who laid some philosophical foundations for diagnosing "carbon chauvinism").

New Scientist: The future of science fiction

Science fiction is all about the future, but what does the future hold for science fiction?

These days, science can be stranger than science fiction, and mainstream literature is increasingly futuristic and speculative. So are the genre's days numbered? We asked six leading writers for their thoughts on the future of science fiction, including Margaret Atwood, William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson.

Plus, we review the latest sci-fi novels, highlight the writers to watch and reveal the results our poll of your all-time favourite sci-fi films and books.

The future of sci-fi

Is science fiction dying, asks Marcus Chown

What does the future hold for the genre of science fiction? We asked six leading writers:

Margaret Atwood

Stephen Baxter

William Gibson

Ursula K Le Guin

Kim Stanley Robinson

Nick Sagan

Book reviews

Anathem by Neal Stephenson - including an exclusive video interview with Stephenson

The Last Theorem by Arthur C Clarke and Frederik Pohl

City at the End of Time by Greg Bear

Saturn's Children by Charles Stross

Incandescence by Greg Egan

Plus: The best of the rest - including an exclusive video interview with Brian Greene

Who are the hot new writers to watch out for?

Your favourite sci-fi

Read the results of our readers' poll

See all the votes in the film poll

See all the votes in the book poll

Find out New Scientist's favourite sci-fi:

New Scientist staffers' favourite (and most hated) sci-fi films

New Scientist staffers' favourite (and most-difficult-to-understand) sci-fi books

The editorial and accompanying articles are also definitely not to be missed.

Kim Stanley Robinson Interview

Speculating a Sustainable Future: Science Fiction & the Pedagogy of Ecological Literacy

This thesis by Eric Otto appears simpatico with Acheron's mission statement. It takes a balanced look at the treatment of ecological themes spanning from Deep Ecology to Kim Stanley Robinson's imagining that Red and Green may eventually lay down together in the fields of the Lord.

I'm archiving it here as it merits further attention once I'm finally freed from the other commitments currently bearing down on me.

http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0000587/otto_e.pdf

Battleship Earth: The Weaponisation of Geoengineering

I've almost finished reading Green Mars, so I was astonished to come across the following article, which matches Kim Stanley Robinson's insights into the strategic importance of terraforming. Unlike some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories regarding climate change, this piece is scrupulous in its attentiveness to scientific credentials, i.e how it could work, as well as the asymetrical distributions of power that would make such an abuse of the technology an attractive option for some (I took the liberty though of slightly modifying the title of the original piece so as to more explicitly reflect this blog's interest in biotechnological matters).

The stance adopted in this case differs as well from that of the fundamentalist environmentalist characters in Robinson's book. Its operating premise is not that geoengineering should be opposed in all forms, but rather that binding prescriptions for appropriate use need to be established. As per Robinson, space is also left for redressing the aforementioned socioeconomic dimensions of power that play a constitutive, and not merely an after the event role, in the questionable actions of both state and non-state actors. Such instances might amount to another manifestation of the [cynically opportunistic] "disaster capitalism" Naomi Klein has warned against. As such, it is feasible that they will also feature in future critical studies in the field of crisis management.

After pasting the reference below, along with a short excerpt, I've also linked to the author's blog, which is worthy of future monitoring.

In the early 1970s, the Pentagon’s Project Popeye attempted to use cloud seeding to increase the strength of monsoons and bog down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1996, a group of Air Force and Army officers working with the Air Force 2025 program produced a document titled “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025” (it never went anywhere). The Soviet Union reputedly had similar projects underway. But although the idea of a geoengineering arms race may superficially parallel this line of thinking, it’s actually a very different concept. Unlike “weather warfare,” geoengineering would be subtle and long term, more a strategic project than a tactical weapon; moreover, unlike weather control, we know it can work, since we’ve been unintentionally changing the climate for decades.

Jamais Cascio is an environmental futurist and a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He blogs at Open the Future.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4146