F*** you aristotle.

Big posthuman vibes through here -- a direct link is made to animal and human communication, noting the ways in which they're similar

Posthumanism must not be seen as an end, but rather as a beginning. "Post" implies that there was a before -- it is up to us to explain just how we arrived at posthumanism. Dr. Rivers gave the example in last week's class of a math teacher asking students to show their work--how did you arrive at that answer?

This quote makes me think of a poem by Robinson Jeffers: Shine, Perishing Republic

While I'm sure Jeffers wasn't after furthering the cause of posthumanism, it seems like an especially interesting piece to give a posthuman reading to.

Now, someone please do that because I do not understand how the hell to do it.

At least she laid it out front and center. If this piece is anything like the Barad essay, then we can at least walk away with this sentence.

Herein lies the problem, most notably with the notion of "tools." Issues arise not because of the process by which one tries to complete the task, but rather, through the use of inappropriate tools for the job.The job at hand is to "produce postman rhetorics." This job can be likened to any other sort of carpentry job, say building a bookshelf. If one decides to use a screwdriver to nail into a board, the end product and process will not be as fulfilling. Will the job get done? Probably. Will it produce the same quality as using a hammer would? Probably not. The same can be said when producing posthuman rhetorics: we must find the correct tools to use in order to produce the best work.

Foreclose: To bar, exclude, shut out completely, but also many other senses, including to take away the power of redeeming or to close beforehand http://www.oed.com.ezp.slu.edu/view/Entry/72991?redirectedFrom=foreclose#eid

I think this phrase lies at the heart of where I'm wrapping my head around what posthumanism means. As Dr. Rivers said in class, there's this assumption of the human (the 'easy distinction' of what the human is), but when we foreclose--when we do away with--that ease, we might consider posthumanism as "post (the assumption of what it means to be) human". Instead of assuming we have a good/clear/universal understanding of what it is to be "human," posthumanism does away with that assumption and instead seeks to explore, to ask questions, to address multiple and varied possible definitions (like we do with rhetoric).

Lanham says, "The Strong Defense assumes that truth is determined by social dramas, some more formal than others but all man-made. Rhetoric in such a world is not ornamental but determinative, essentially creative" (156). If that defense is not just restricted to "man-made" social dramas but cultural dramas, to dramas rooted in a particular historical and cultural context (joining Rickert's sense of rhetorics), then it can also be opened up to material forces beyond the human.

I'll be the first to admit I wasn't able to follow all of what Barad is tackling here, but I'll take a stab at a summary: Barad argues that we need to bring matter/the material into our concepts of rhetoric, agency, and performance--to not bind these issues only to the human but to see them posthumanly, to leave behind the assumption that these concepts can only be 'wielded' or conducted by humans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BHXCIR29J0

I'm tagging this for my own benefit, really, because here Barad offers an excellent, succinct distillation of this posthumanist thing.

I'm tagging this for my own benefit, really, because here Barad offers an excellent, succinct distillation of this posthumanist thing.

So in Siegert's assessment, US posthumanism is focused on the body whereas German posthumanism is focused on meaning and signification.

To grasp the distinction, I think I need better understanding of where meaning was and where it shifted to (and how that becomes posthuman).

It's interesting the use of the word "soul" here as a means to define the unquantifiable part of what makes us human taken from the article mentioned previously. Much of the author's argument has thus far been biotech based and "soul" is at first what the author describes as the chemicals that makes us feel, whereas "soul" is traditionally used as the essence of who we are while our body is just a vessel for that "soul" to live through.

Posthuman beings contradict the human conditions that apply to my life, and every living being for that matter: immortality is non-existent. The passage alludes that the posthuman evolution will oppose the current human condition, and humanity will be redefine its physical form. A reformation in the modern humans understanding of scarcity is entirely different than that of the posthuman. With increased control over the posthumans physical capability are differing in juxtaposition to the human condition in the twenty first century: Prompting our modern society with the question of whether the human condition makes significant biological changes. The change from the former to the latter intertwines technological advancements with physical capabilities, although to what end? The human condition will be a backbone to the technology that manages the posthumans interpretation of reality.

It's interesting that the author chooses to emphasize the distinction between extropy as an opposition to entropy, but instead as a metaphor. However, would extropy not be the opposite of entropy metaphorically as well? Scientific definition aside, entropy is defined as the universe's tendency towards chaos in all manners of the word meaning constant expansion and disorder. Extropy is the universe's tendency towards the idea of a 'singularity' (discussed in "The Technological Singularity") so essentially the exact opposite? The universe's tendency to follow "intelligence, functional order", etc. toward a single point of "posthuman" where we've gone beyond human capability?

Dinerstein explores the idea of technology as a kind of secular American religion, focusing primarily on the exclusionary practices of such a posthuman theology.