5. The end of technoscience
3 technoscientific colonizations:
of the world by western societies;
of traditional communities by modern org.
of ecosystems by human beings
6. Planetary boundaries
Rockström et al., Nature 2009
A safe operating space for humanity
http://www.ted.com/talks/johan_rockstrom
_let_the_environment_guide_our_development.html
23. The rise of
digital methods
https://soundcloud.com/mit-cmsw/richardrogers-digital-methods
Virtual reality
Late ‘80-early ‘90 (Barlow, Turkle, Negroponte, Rheingold)
Virtual society?
1997-2002 (Steve Woolgar et al.)
Cultural analytics
2007 (Lev Manovitch)
Digital methods
2009 (Richard Rogers)
34. Emergence
George Henry Lewes, 1875
Problems of Life and Mind
The emergent is unlike its components insofar as
these are incommensurable, and it cannot be
reduced to their sum or their difference (p. 412)
41. The quali/quantitative divide
and itsreification
Emile Durkheim, 1912
Le formes élémentaires de
la vie religieuse
The collective self is not a simple
epiphenomenon of its morphologic
base, precisely as the individual self is not a
simple efflorescence of the nervous system.
For the collective self to appear, a sui generis
synthesis of individual self has to be produced.
This synthesis creates a world of
feelings, ideas, images that, once come to
life, follow their own laws.
42. Against emergence
Tarde, 1893
Monadologie et sociologie
It is surprising to see the men of sciences, so
ready to repeat that nothing is ever created from
nothing, admitting implicitly (as if it was selfevident) that the connections among different
beings can become beings themselves (p. 67)
43. Against emergence
Tarde, 1893
Monadologie et sociologie
Let us suppose for a moment that one of our human States, composed not of a few
thousand but of a few quadrillions or quintillions of men, hermetically sealed and
inaccessible as individuals (like China, but infinitely more populous still, and more
closed) was known to us only by the data of its statisticians, whose figures, made up of
very large numbers, recurred with extreme regularity.
When a political or social revolution, which would be revealed to us by an abrupt
enlargement or diminution of some of these numbers, took place in this State, we might
well be certain that we would be observing a fact caused by individual ideas and
passions, but we would resist the temptation to become lost in superfluous conjectures
on the nature of these impenetrable causes even though they alone were the real
ones, and the wisest option would appear to us to explain as best we could the unusual
numbers by ingenious comparisons with clever manipulations of the normal numbers.
We would thereby arrive at least at clear results and symbolic truths. Nonetheless, it
would be important from time to time to recall the purely symbolic nature of these truths.
48. 5 concepts derived from ANT
Action. Acting is making a difference, that is, interfering with other actions.
Association (composition). Action is always collective. The key feature of
action is what it interferes with.
Construction (black-boxing). A set of actions can be associated so strictly and
stably that it can become difficult to distinguish the single interferences.
Research (mapping). The work of social research is to untangle the
associations of actions. In principle, since actions are always collective, every
action can and should be traced back to other actions.
Actor. In practice, since it is impossible to attribute actions back to other
actions ad infinitum, researchers chose where to stop and call what is left
‘actors’. Actors are black-boxes that could be opened, but are not for the sake
of feasibility.
50. Why is continuity
so important?
Collective life is continuous,
but not homogenous.
To observe how in-homogeneity is build,
we need to be sensitive to the difference in the
density of association.
51. Why is continuity
so important?
Collective life is continuous not homogenous.
To observe how non-homogeneity is build,
we need to become sensitive to the
differences in the density of association.
