Daniela Cerqui

From Turing to the Information Society

An anthropological analysis shows two tendencies in today’s “information society”: (1) an increasing valorization of mind, information, and, more generally, immaterial elements, as opposed to body and matter; and (2) a strong tendency to replace everything human with artificial elements (for instance, retina implants, artificial limbs or hip prostheses). Even if these tendencies seem contradictory at first sight, in reality they are not: the mastering of information is their common denominator. Both directions were already present in Turing’s thought as early as the 1940s. The goal of this chapter is to throw a little light on the links between the man, the mathematician, and our present society, a goal that seems to be to create a predictable and infallible human being, in body as well as in mind. It should be noted that, according to Turing, human beings are not infallible in their essence.

Re-Designing Humankind: The Rise of Cyborgs, a Desirable Goal?

The idea that human beings are imperfect is very old. But now, for the first time in history, some people, mainly scientists, have the previously unimaginable power to modify human beings. Redesigning humankind is, generally speaking, the result of a techno-scientific complex called “converging technologies”, and made up of biotechnologies, information technologies, nanotechnologies and cognitive sciences. However, we are more concerned here with electronic devices directly implanted into the human body. After an overview of what might happen to humankind, we also briefly discuss as a conclusion how bright such a future might be, considering that we have two different standpoints. In western societies – as indeed in other societies where the definition may be different from ours – there is an inherent definition of humankind which is taken for granted and which forms our common background. As it is deeply rooted in our culture, it does not need to be formulated to be an efficient guideline. In other words, designers always have – as in fact have all of us – made assumptions on what human beings are (the descriptive aspect) and what they are supposed to be (the normative aspect). These shared values are embedded in all the objects they create, even if they are not necessarily aware of it. Until a few years ago, this normative definition was a dream without any empirical results on human beings themselves, and the process of design was limited to our environment. Now, for the first time in history, some people, mainly scientists, have the previously unimaginable power to make their normative definition of humankind a reality by modifying human beings. Contrary to common ideas, biotechnologies are not the only way in which this can be achieved. In reality, the future of humankind is not only linked to biotechnologies, but to a whole raft of techno-scientific developments. Biotechnologies are just the visible part of the iceberg, one single piece in the puzzle of P. E. Vermaas et al. (eds.), Philosophy and Design. 185

Le vieillissement – une maladie chronique à l’issue souvent mortelle ?

Recapitulation. Dans un communique de presse du 6 novembre 20141, l’Organisation Mondiale de la Sante (OMS) faisait du « bien vieillir » une priorite mondiale. Cette priorite pourrait devenir un defi pour la sante publique. Mais qu’est-ce que se cache derriere le « bien vieillir » ?