Intervolution

Intervolution: Smart Bodies Smart Things by Mark C Taylor is a volume (the first?) in the No Limits series. Going from Hegel and Kant through Kierkegaard and Heidegger to artificial intelligence and the Singularity Taylor discusses where our being and our environment meet and join.

Using his diabetes and reliance on an insulin pump as a jumping point to consider what exactly constitutes his body and/or whether the pump is part of him or simply attached. While he mentions Katherine Hayles he references an early article she wrote, but I think some of her thinking in her recent book Postprint would be useful here, primarily her concept of a cognitive assemblage. Much of what Taylor discusses here would fit into that category.

He uses the ideas of an intranet of the body, the internet of things, and the internet of the bodies to guide his thinking. This works quite well and makes many of his connections flow very well. When he gets to the area of AI and the potential Singularity, he mentions comparisons to Frankenstein, which brought to mind another recent book, Artificial Life After Frankenstein by Eileen Hunt Botting. She also addresses concerns about AI and Singularity. Where she used fictional works (political science fiction) Taylor primarily used philosophical works, yet many of the ideas were in line with each other.

While Taylor's reliance on an insulin pump presents a much clearer image of the blurring of distinction between biological and technological entities he cites many examples of ways in which we function largely as part of multiple cognitive assemblages. In other words, we are already all cyborgs. His use of Hegel to show that even then, within philosophy, the idea existed that we are made up of networks, thus his overall structure of intranet of the body, the internet of things, and the internet of bodies. 

Although not directly related to the main point(s) of this book, Taylor's ideas made me think about the way we tend to think in dichotomies. He mentions some of the ones most common, body/mind, etc. I couldn't help but think about whether these dichotomies would be better thought of as complements. While different, and often seemingly in opposition, they also work together to form the whole, to make understanding of either possible. Without light it is hard to consider darkness, without health it is hard to understand disease, and so on. But anyway...

I would recommend this to anyone who might be interested in looking at how, both philosophically and technologically, our concepts of self, body, and cognition are changing. The writing is accessible though I would recommend taking it slow so you can consider his ideas and connections thoroughly. 

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.