[TPF Essay] Technoethics: Freedom, Precarity, and Enzymatic Knowledge Machines

But from a psychic and qualitative point of view, the situation is not so straightforward. While disparate cultures conflict in their values, sometimes violently so, and homogenising them might therefore seem superficially desirable, values are the subject’s fulcrum of meaning and, beyond the dictats of pure survival, meaning is ultimately what lends quality to life.

From a social constructivist perspective, subjects simultaneously imply and ground each other.

But culture does not replicate itself with full fidelity because its subjects are not entirely defined culturally. And because of this, it can mutate quickly, especially when under stress

That is, though social systems operate on the basis of “structural couplings” with agentic subjects, they can be considered semantically operative without minds or agency [ibid]. In this scaling up of the subject to the interoperative group, freedom, even if we grant it as implied by what we know as culture, is secondary to the functioning of communicative code and not something that society seeks to protect. It may offer adaptability advantages and that may be what has preserved it up until now, but that does not mean culture cannot theoretically leave freedom behind to a large or even total degree even if that ultimately means culture becoming so rigid it destroys itself as recognizably cultural and reverts to something more akin to insect sociality along the lines of Star Trek's “Borg”.

Other theorists (e.g. Seth Lloyd [5]) have extended this “code primacy” further down through biology into physics to position communication as fundamental to reality. They posit a code-based metaphysics whereby the transfer, overlap, reconfiguring and layering of code is at the root of what manifests as physical, mental and social reality. Everything becomes reducible, in theory, to code-based systems which, while they ultimately manifest a form of human agency, again can’t be said to “need” it.

In this pan-semiotic ontology whereby matter in its observable form emerges from code and reality consists of layers of autopoietic coding systems, free subjectivity is just another layer that emerges when technics (in Simondon and Stiegler’s sense of symbolic affordances, especially language) appears in humans. But whether or not code goes “all the way down”, if human subjectivity is nested between code-based biological and social systems, which potentialize meaning without freedom, then agency is always contingent and precarious and should be recognized as such rather than accepted as humanity's biological and social given.

But whether or not code goes “all the way down”, if human subjectivity is nested between code-based biological and social systems, which potentialize meaning without freedom, then agency is always contingent and precarious and should be recognized as such rather than accepted as humanity's biological and social given.

They are, in Stieglers sense, “pharmacological” in nature; both a curative and a toxin [9]. As a curative, they offer us knowledge and contexts in which to creatively utilize them, marking us as unique individuals in so doing. This is what Stiegler, following Simondon, refers to as “individuation” [8][9]. But as a toxin, they “consume” subjectivity as a substrate and dissolve it, making us passive, conforming, and reliant (“disindividuation”) [ibid].

, a society of individuals who cannot see themselves beyond how society sees them and define themselves limitedly as such

This creative activity, or ethic, amounts to subjectivity taking a stand as a system in the hierarchy of systems by consciously situating itself as a locus around which other systems ought revolve rather than submitting fully to their pull.

This underlines again the point that freedom has never been at the core of social organization, but has only ever been epiphenomenal. There has been freedom through organization but not freedom-based organization. Only an exceptional minority of individuals have ever acted as perturbations in systems and helped to reconfigure them through thinking against their sociocultural milieux. The norm has always been conformity whether or not socially recognized as such. That is, there has yet to be a society that directly arranges itself around the development of free subjectivity, its spectrum of affordances and capacities, and, above all, its essential creativity.

Not only are we as far as ever from a society where subjectivity comes first, where economic growth is the incidental outcome of the fostering of free and healthy subjectivities rather than vice versa, we seem to be intent on destroying the social and environmental grounds of subjectivity’s ongoing development in a blind effort at eternal expansion. In this respect, society itself seems to be suffering from the same irrational self-defeating compulsivity it inflicts on its members.

This necessitates a form of ironic self-awareness whereby the theory acknowledges its transient symbolic situatedness in and dependence on the very structures it seeks to change. Theory must preach but also mock itself as an “idiot” in the church of the sacred—never a denizen but always a refugee

This essay amounts to a critique of a consumerist culture that is driven by technology and rooted in capitalism.

It hardly seems an exaggeration to claim, for example, that globalized technocapitalism is engaged in a form of hyper-symbolization that is overwriting individual cultures and the values they inhere

So, we cannot fully pin down or exhaust the meaning of a word, for example, through a dictionary defnition; there is always an excess to meaning that can expand or redirect itself. The fact that words change meaning over time, sometimes very quickly, is testament to this.

But culture does not replicate itself with full fidelity because its subjects are not entirely defined culturally. And because of this, it can mutate quickly, especially when under stress

Social systems use communication as their particular mode of autopoietic reproduction. The elements of the system are produced and reproduced by the system itself.”

It may offer adaptability advantages and that may be what has preserved it up until now, but that does not mean culture cannot theoretically leave freedom behind to a large or even total degree even if that ultimately means culture becoming so rigid it destroys itself as recognizably cultural and reverts to something more akin to insect sociality along the lines of Star Trek's “Borg”.

Though meaning is preserved at all levels, freedom in both directions from the subject is decoupled from meaning-making with the operation of communicative code instead enacting it.

When these processes dominate society, we fall into what Stiegler refers to as a “proletarianization” of mind, a general mindset unaware and / or unwilling to potentialize itself except as a function of the system in which it partakes

EKMs can be defined as abstract machinic assemblages of functional conceptual elements that are designed to be “plugged in” to psychic systems with the explicit goal of transformative catalyses that are reproduced outwards from subjects to culture.

Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the considered form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection.”

That is, there has yet to be a society that directly arranges itself around the development of free subjectivity, its spectrum of affordances and capacities, and, above all, its essential creativity.

Ostensible freedoms are ideologically shepherded towards freedom of consumer choice, with the unspoken proviso that one must continue to consume.

In this respect, society itself seems to be suffering from the same irrational self-defeating compulsivity it inflicts on its members

Whether or not we can turn this situation around and create social structures based around the fostering of subjectivity is open to debate. And, as mentioned, any theory espousing this, even as a potential, must stand against self-dogmatisation in order to present itself seriously as a path towards self and social transformation.

The essay is challenging and rather long, so I shall have to read it in sections, reflect and comment before continuing.

The central idea, if my understanding of it is correct, does certainly fit my perception of the world in which I live. However, the language is ten degrees too abstruse for me and some of the concepts, beyond my ability to visualize. I don't recommend it as a tool-kit for the average producer, voter and consumer.

It shares concerns with a recent discussion in the Negative Dialectics reading group, about Adorno's claim that human beings were "becoming ideology," by which he meant that subjectivity was becoming no more than a construct of commodification and the culture industry. In that discussion I also happened to mention Hans-Georg Moeller's theory of profilicity, which is centrally based on Niklas Luhmann's systems theory.

I hope to come back and say something more interesting.

When these processes dominate society, we fall into what Stiegler refers to as a “proletarianization” of mind, a general mindset unaware and / or unwilling to potentialize itself except as a function of the system in which it partakes
— Moliere
This is observably true, not only in technological societies, but in all societies with a rigidly imposed top-down value system, such as monarchies, theocracies and ideological dictatorships.

The main point is that capitalism creates a false sense of freedom while actually taking it away, treating individual identities as products that can be sold. This can lead to a serious decline in both culture and the people who make it.

Pluckrose, and Boghossian set out to rerun the original hoax, only on a much larger scale. Call it Sokal Squared.

Generally speaking, the journals that fell for Sokal Squared publish respected scholars from respected programs. For example, Gender, Place and Culture, which accepted one of the hoax papers, has in the past months published work from professors at UCLA, Temple, Penn State, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Manchester, and Berlin’s Humboldt University, among many others.

The sheer craziness of the papers the authors concocted makes this fact all the more shocking. One of their papers reads like a straightforward riff on the Sokal Hoax. Dismissing “western astronomy” as sexist and imperialist, it makes a case for physics departments to study feminist astrology—or practice interpretative dance—instead:

Other means superior to the natural sciences exist to extract alternative knowledges about stars and enriching astronomy, including ethnography and other social science methodologies, careful examination of the intersection of extant astrologies from around the globe, incorporation of mythological narratives and modern feminist analysis of them, feminist interpretative dance (especially with regard to the movements of the stars and their astrological significance), and direct application of feminist and postcolonial discourses concerning alternative knowledges and cultural narratives.

The paper that was published in Gender, Place and Culture seems downright silly. “Human Reaction to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon” claims to be based on in situ observation of canine rape culture in a Portland dog park. “Do dogs suffer oppression based upon (perceived) gender?” the paper asks.

There must be some accessible mental tools for regular people to cope with the approaching turbulence.

EKMs can be defined as abstract machinic assemblages of functional conceptual elements that are designed to be “plugged in” to psychic systems with the explicit goal of transformative catalyses that are reproduced outwards from subjects to culture. The enzymatic knowledge machine aims to borrow the stimulative operatonality of technocapitalism to turn it against itself.

Of course, EKMs are not intended to be dogmatic statements of truth, an orientation that would undermine their spirit. They are rather modes of knowledge catalysis that may help to provide a means to resist degradative manipulation by abstract social machines of conditioning that encourage us to outsource our cognitive capacities, bureaucratize our mental states, and degrade our semantic salience.

How does this plugging-in take place?

“Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the considered form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection.”

Foucault [4].

The overall implication of our claims is that technocapitalism is a global cultural machine for producing nominally free subjectivities while eroding ontological freedom. It creates and processes subjectivity as a product to be sold (e.g. to advertisers) and converted into more capital. In fact, we claim capital, in its operation through autopoietic social systems for which freedom is epiphenomenal, essentially expands through monetizing the conversion of ontological to nominal freedom. The ultimate result of this, we have cautioned, may be an irreversible decline of both culture and the subjects that form it.

The main point is that capitalism creates a false sense of freedom while actually taking it away, treating individual identities as products that can be sold. This can lead to a serious decline in both culture and the people who make it.

Individuals are inexplicable, incomparable, unlimited, unique.

The world is destroyed by mere cyphers, masquerading as 'characters', addicted to the fake freedom of money.

(Amity's dumbitdown version)

"individual identities" are what we are being sold, what we are told is important, and they are nothing else than the sum of the consumer choices we make. It follows that wealth is freedom. But consumer choices are not moral choices.

But it goes deeper: identities are not individual. Identities are necessarily external to the individual in origin and are interiorised by imposition or incorporation. To say that I am this or that, a philosopher or a buffoon, is to identify with a type, to join a club, and this, whether I say it or you do. Identification denies individuality. Race, gender, nationality, profession, football team, favourite shampoo, favourite philosopher, neurotype, there is nothing individual in any of it. Individuals are inexplicable, incomparable, unlimited, unique.

I think identity can be an important, even essential element of particularity, as does situatedness in history. It's what makes the individual a meaningful individual.

(if mostly continental)

I much appreciate having the opportunity to share these ideas in this format. The event really motivated me to put the work in.

(if mostly the good guys, yes) ;)

I appreciated your essay so much because it was more than I expected -- it's a strong thesis that explains itself and causes reflection in me. I suppose now that you've revealed I'll join in the back-and-forth.

On the difficulty of the text: I didn't deliberately try to complexify it, but I tried to prioritize theoretical preciseness which involved employing a lot of technical vocabulary that, understandably, the vast majority of readers were unlikely to be familiar with.

I think I can do a better job of explaining the thrust of this in the comments here than Amity's website, so I may come back and try that later.

Anyhow, thanks for all the comments. I much appreciate having the opportunity to share these ideas in this format. The event really motivated me to put the work in.

I’ve been reading about “autopoiesis” for the past while (Principles of Biological Autonomy, by Valera, and Biological Autonomy, by Morena) as it pertains to individual biological autonomy, so it’s cool to see it presented in a sociological context.

.... so the important message could be ignored by a wider range of readers.
[sigh] I've been here before, in several formats.[!sigh]

I prefer the Sokal hoax interpretation. Are you telling me that you didn't use AI to technicalise the text?
I loved the inventiveness of Baden's EKM :nerd:

A theory as EKM then is an epistemic protective that aims to catalyze active reflection against passive reflexivity. In doing so, it offers resistance to subsumption by higher level systemic processes through the establishment of thought and behaviors that enhance and intensify contextual understanding and creative activity on the autopoietic level of subjectivity. This creative activity, or ethic, amounts to subjectivity taking a stand as a system in the hierarchy of systems by consciously situating itself as a locus around which other systems ought revolve rather than submitting fully to their pull. Here, freedom is leveraged to protect against its instrumentalization at the level of hierarchy in which it sits as system. It resists hijacking by technocapitalist consumerism to maintain its ontological force in its refusal to be defined by “freedoms” whose exchange-based forms merely stage us as players in a game that is not played for our benefit and that we can never win.

I ask because there are all sorts of things that seem to overpower individual agency and sovereignty, but many of them are not seen as bad (e.g. culture, traditions, intermediate institutions, law, etc.).

I'm not quite sure from your reply how much we're on the same page re EKMs. But to clarify, EKMs are an abstract concept. The idea is that in recognition that technocapitalism creates abstract machines (such as media algorithms) that virally “plug into” our cognitive functionality and pathologize it towards habitual mental reflexivity, an EKM is a set of ideas that similarly plug into us but with the contrary intention of catalysing the kind of reflection we need to counteract media machines. This is another way of saying we need virally transmissible and catalytic abstract mechanisms to 1) help us to understand the precarity of our mental independence and 2) create frameworks of understanding that give us the epistemic confidence to act against prevailing cultural norms---to help us realize we're not alone in such "craziness". Less colourfully, we are in desperate need of sets of ideas that inspire people to divorce themselves from a system for whom their mental operations are little more than a substrate for its reproduction.

an EKM is a set of ideas that similarly plug into us but with the contrary intention of catalysing the kind of reflection we need to counteract media machines.

Re capitalism. The last thing I want to do is attack capitalism in general. That’s like throwing a boomerang and then quickly tying your hands so rather than being caught when it returns, it bangs you on the head. Capitalism in a broad sense (including Chinese “communism”) is that very ideology that has made alternatives impossible. However, even within capitalism, technocapitalism and specifically its instantiation in forms of media that monopolize us cognitively can be taken on not only through individual resistance (refusal to engage with such media or severely limiting such engagement etc.), but also through public policy. A good example is Australia’s recent ban on social media for children. But it’s hard because we can understand we are being manipulated and still reproduce the processes of manipulation. So, for example, instead of just using social media blindly, we go on social media and tell everyone how bad it is and everyone agrees and we all have a good time and feel we’ve done something and meanwhile the train rolls on ever faster.

I think what's particularly bad about technocapitalism is that its suppression of ontological freedoms presents itself as an opening up of freedom through a bait and switch where ontological freedom is substituted by nominal freedoms

It's not so much that agency and sovereignty are overpowered, it's that they are made invisible to us. We become primarily a set of mental operations that reproduces a bunch of social communications and consider it an important right that we should be allowed to do so and in ever greater variety, the breadth of which obscures the lack of depth.

I mentioned technology is "pharamcological", being both a poison and cure, but didn't mention that this idea was taken from Bernard Stiegler via Derrida from Plato's discussion of writing in "Phaedrus" where, though the advantages of writing are mentioned, the danger that a shift towards this technology would harm the human capacity for memory is also discussed.

Similarly, the advantages of technology are clear enough and ideologically hammered into us, but the dangers, and particularly the dangers of seemingly benign forms, ought to be kept in mind.

On the difficulty of the text: I didn't deliberately try to complexify it, but I tried to prioritize theoretical preciseness which involved employing a lot of technical vocabulary that, understandably, the vast majority of readers were unlikely to be familiar with. In retrospect, a glossary would probably have been helpful, but I wrote most of this in the last week before the deadline and was still proofreading the above when I sent it (there even remain a few typos).

What we have outlined above is a warning that situates human subjects in a diachronic hierarchy between biological and social reality and a synchronic relationship with other subjects that both potentializes and creates their status as free agents.

On the difficulty of the text

So the complaints are just anti-intellectualism, or laziness, or both.

So the complaints are just anti-intellectualism, or laziness, or both.

I hope to come back and say something more interesting.

It deserves readers who are willing to do their own work to understand it.

Read Byung Chul-Han's 'Psychopolitics,' it is almost like he wrote a commentary of Baden's work - only more legible.

Amity unenlightened @Vera Mont

On the difficulty of the text: I didn't deliberately try to complexify it, but I tried to prioritize theoretical preciseness which involved employing a lot of technical vocabulary that, understandably, the vast majority of readers were unlikely to be familiar with

The problem is that several of the readers seem to have expected something dumbed down or put in language they’re already familiar with. As far as I’m aware this was not in the rules of the event, was it?

This essay amounts to a critique of a consumerist culture that is driven by technology and rooted in capitalism.
— Moliere
You've got my vote right there! The rest of that first paragraphs elicits interest, curiosity and brings a host of long-held beliefs and long withheld doubts to the fore. I find myself lining up possible responses even before I've read the arguments.

The essay is challenging and rather long, so I shall have to read it in sections, reflect and comment before continuing.

It’s a shame that people who apparently want to be part of a philosophy discussion forum are not willing to grapple with philosophy, or perhaps do not even realize that philosophy is difficult and sometimes technical.

It’s perhaps telling that whenever I criticize people for anti-intellectualism or laziness they pretend I’ve implied they’re not intellectual enough. That is obviously not the case. It is fine to be flummoxed; what is not fine is to immediately complain about it to the author. Be flummoxed, and if you’re genuinely interested, de-flummox yourself, perhaps with the help of some polite questions.

Read Byung Chul-Han's 'Psychopolitics,' it is almost like he wrote a commentary of Baden's work - only more legible.
— I like sushi

Thank you. Found and downloaded a free pdf (74 pages). Will read later...

I'm pretty sure the salient points can be translated to more accessible - if less philosophically precise - language. I would like to see that version widely disseminated....
.... so the important message could be ignored by a wider range of readers.
[sigh] I've been here before, in several formats.[!sigh]

It's always worth a try. :strong:

This essay amounts to a critique of a consumerist culture that is driven by technology and rooted in capitalism. The proximate goal is not to suggest alternative political systems but to offer conceptual tools to help protect free subjectivity as a creative and self-creating force through presenting in a brief introductory way a theory concerning its cultural situatedness.

Meaning is use [11] because use manifests this intelligibility, expressing in communicative acts the relation between an individual's neurological patternings of understandings of a concept and the social patternings of brains that share understandings of the concept. The behavioral expressions of this web of interwoven patterns, this web of webbed nodes, simultaneously express and define meaning because they represent social instantiations of this web and—in successful communication—reinforce its structure in accordance with those instantiations. This interdependence makes language both stable and mutable. Stable in that webs of linguistic meaning are self-reinforcing through communicative acts, but mutable in that the boundaries of what is considered successful communication are not absolutely fixed but depend on social and human contexts that are changeable. So, we cannot fully pin down or exhaust the meaning of a word, for example, through a dictionary defnition; there is always an excess to meaning that can expand or redirect itself. The fact that words change meaning over time, sometimes very quickly, is testament to this.

The latter, toxic, mode of action of social life seems more and more apparent in contemporary technologically driven cultures occurring through, for example:

1. The bureaucratization of cognition (the capturing of cognitive capacity for uncreative calculative labour limited to reproducing systemic functionality)
2. (Negative) exteriorization / algorithmic outsourcing (the general stultifying of mental development through the replacement of cognitive tasks by algorithmic processes)
3. Semantic flattening (the dulling and standardization of language use towards reflexive repetition of codes of systemic reproduction)
4. Behavioural conditioning (the limiting of imaginative capacity and creative potential by the channeling of behaviour into operationally defined grooves)

When these processes dominate society, we fall into what Stiegler refers to as a “proletarianization” of mind, a general mindset unaware and / or unwilling to potentialize itself except as a function of the system in which it partakes, a society of individuals who cannot see themselves beyond how society sees them and define themselves limitedly as such [9]. Part of addressing that problem, of course, is promoting knowledge of the problem as a means to stimulate thought and action, and in a society that seems to be becoming ever more reflexive, encouraging reflection seems crucial. Of course, the weapon of the theorist in this effort is the theory itself, an idea through which we will now take a detour.

A theory as EKM then is an epistemic protective that aims to catalyze active reflection against passive reflexivity.

The freedom to say “no” to economic imperatives is concomitantly marginalized along with anyone who dares exercise it. Further, while the full spectrum of human agency seems to offer the mutative and creative perturbations in societies that may allow for advance, there is no ironclad reason to think technocapitalism cannot as previously mentioned, evolve towards an increasingly limited form of freedom and, by extension, subjectivity.

Isn't this the Frankfurt school response, meaning we should impose ways to disrupt the capitalist takeover of technology for its malevolent purposes as opposed to traditional Marxists who would advocate removal of technology from private ownership and placing it back into the hands of the citizens?

This really resonates with my recent readings (Schiller on aesthetics, Byung-Chul Han on technocapitalism, and John Gray on Utopian engineering), and it represents just the type of thinking we need now with the gap between ideological "freedom" and actual freedom becoming ever wider.

Apologies to all of you. I went on a very long break.

It is Han's 'Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power'. For whatever reason Baden forgot to cite the main contributing source for this essay.

I haven't read that one actually. I've only read "Infocracy". I'm a bit sceptical that the book you mention is that close to my essay in content, but I am tempted to read it to check.

So, I've read about half of that book already

My general thought is that yours is an accurate concern from both the right and the left, and you offer a defense to this overwhelming impact of negative cultural influences (which you identify generally as "capitalism") which is to remember you are a human being with choice with a much higher purpose than submission to the will of the financially ambitious. But I think it goes well beyond captialism. It's most values you see displayed on TikTok. Our defense is to remember our higher calling. You identify that from the left as revealed through the humanities. The right is essentially saying the same thing just different words.

Just reread trying to look for an "in" for discussion. And the thing I'm wanting more of is specification of these enzymatic knowledge machines: How do they interact with the independent flows of code such that in place of identification, or in combatting this?, we get or somehow are interrupted by knowledge? But that's a Kudos on your writing because it means I wanted more, basically. It's an interesting premise, and I like the theoretical set up between what I would call, for lack of a better word, two subjectivities -- the social subjectivity (operating independent of individual intent) and the individual subjectivity (that sense of being you which, due to social subjectivity, is often a process of identification-with and enactment).

A thought that comes to mind are Koans. They're meant to stop that circuit of the self in a way.