File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2001/lyotard.0104, message 38


Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 15:27:33 -0400
From: "Smith, Donald S" <Donald.S.Smith-AT-usa.xerox.com>
Subject: RE: Information


Steve, yes reality is a social construction but don't you think that some
people or groups are in a better position and have higher stakes in defining
reality?

On a related subject, Yesterday I heard a small part of a conversation on
National Public Radio about a project in some university to study the
evolution of digital technology in hopes that it could provide some clues
for evolution in nature. What is the relationship between natural evolution
and digital evolution? Is there a movement to pass digital technology off as
a logical extension of natural evolution? I can think of reasons why a
consumer society might find that useful. There have been attempts in the
past to pass off organizational theory as following the natural order of
things for hegemonic purposes. 

Don  

>
> at this level reality is a social construction - a technology 
> is always social
> before it is a technique.
> 
> As such a 'digital technocrat' no more redefines reality than 
> any other
> technologist - have there ever been any non-technological humans?
> 
> sdv
> 
> "Smith, Donald S" wrote:
> 
> >  "...but in general it comes down to the
> > radically simple notion that the universe, at its deepest levels, is
> > made not of matter and energy but of bits. "
> >
> > First we are given digital clocks that chunk the flow of 
> time then we are
> > given CD's that chunk the flow of music and now we are told 
> that reality is
> > bits after all.
> >
> > Are the digital technocrats redefining reality to fit their 
> technology?
> >
> > Don
> 

   

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