The Universal Subject of Our Time: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Machine

The Universal Subject of Our Time: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Machine

by Darius Nikbin
The Universal Subject of Our Time: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Machine

The Universal Subject of Our Time: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Machine

by Darius Nikbin

Paperback

$16.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

The Subject itself is the Subject of the Machine. What does it mean to be human? We live in a technological age, where rapid advances in personal tech and the science of Artificial Intelligence are challenging us in ways never before imagined. A book in two parts, The Universal Subject of Our Time begins with an exploration of 20th Century post-modernism's undermining of subjectivity with thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard and Althusser and continues with a description of the science wars, where physical realists challenged the post-modernists up to the 1990s when the intellectual conflict resulted in an uncompromising stand-off after the Sokal Hoax. In Part II the subject is resurrected by taking a look at arguments for machine intelligence and AI and also, from the perspective of physics, examines what subjectivity means, particularly in relation to black holes or black stars, and look to what lies ahead in the future, in terms of space exploration, Martian habitats and even the possibility of first contact with extra-terrestrials.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781789040401
Publisher: Collective Ink
Publication date: 02/22/2019
Pages: 168
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Darius Nikbin is a science writer based in London. He studied Physics and Science Communication at Imperial College, London and Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College and has worked at CERN, Geneva, and the Institute of Physics Publishing in Bristol. Nikbin is fluent in French, and also speaks Persian and German.

Table of Contents

Introduction Man vs Machine 1

Part I

Chapter 1 The End of the Self 24

Chapter 2 Science against the Post-Modern 37

Part II

Chapter 3 The Subject of the Machine 56

Chapter 4 On Human Subjectivity 73

Chapter 5 The Universal Subject 90

Conclusion Our New Reality 108

Aphorisms Twenty Steps to the Universal 122

Afterword An Optimist's Glass 152

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews