Thinking the Machine
Supplement, Mimesis, Metaphor
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3986/fv.45.2.18Keywords:
machine, labor, supplement, simulacrum, metaphor, desire, knowledgeAbstract
The fact that we were used to thinking non-thinking machines, the ones supplementing human physical labor, and that we are only now encountering machines that supposedly supplement human thinking, does not mean that this is either the direction in the evolution of the machine or the genealogy of ideas about the machine. Psychoanalysis tempts us to say that the history of the machine could only be written together with the history of the unconscious, while studies of ancient orality reveal to us the intricacy of the oral technicity predating the technology of the written word. This means that the machine predates a simple tool, and highlights the possibility of thinking a genealogy of the machine, which must necessarily entangle with the genealogy of thought and memory. Following this line of thought, we should correct ourselves by saying that the idea of a machine that thinks is not a contemporary occurrence after all.
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