{"id":13045,"date":"2012-11-13T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=13045"},"modified":"2012-11-13T10:39:54","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T14:39:54","slug":"pure-dualism-and-pure-integration-take-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2012\/11\/13\/pure-dualism-and-pure-integration-take-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Pure Dualism and Pure Integration: Take Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, in response to Jurgenson’s earlier typology of dualist theorizing<\/a>, \u00a0I typologized empirical\/experiential reality upon a porous continuum between pure digital dualism and pure integration.<\/a> Each of these poles represents a problematic and unrealistic ideal type. The intervening categories, however, represent theorizable empirical situations. In an effort to explicitly link my argument to Jurgenson’s, \u00a0I labeled these intervening categories using the language of his typology. Jurgenson critiqued this linguistic choice, and I agree. \u00a0Having driven home the connection, and diagnosed the “slipperiness” of theory that Jurgenson decried, \u00a0I now re-work the language of my typology to more precisely represent the meaning behind each categorical type. Although the adjustments are slight (I change only two words–but very important ones), the meaning is far more lucid. Below is the original post, with my typological categories reworked\u00a0linguistically. Changes are indicated by red text. Further suggestions\/critiques are welcome.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Several weeks ago, Nathan Jurgenson (@nathanjurgenson<\/a>) further delineated his theory of digital dualism, laying out a\u00a0typology of dualist theoretical tendencies<\/a>\u00a0in relation to the \u201caugmented\u201d perspective. In this post, he critiques existing theorists\/scholars\/technology analysts not only for being dualist, but also for shifting sloppily and often indiscriminately between levels of dualism. Here, I want to diagnose the problem of slippery theorizing and emphasize the importance of a flexible perspective. I begin with an overview of Jurgenson\u2019s typology.\"\"<\/p>\n

For any newbies to Cyborgology, Jurgenson coined the term \u201cdigital dualism<\/a>\u201d to refer to the false dichotomization of physical and digital. He argues instead for an augmented perspective, through which digital and physical, atoms and bits, are understood as unique, but inextricably intertwined. Last week, he located the augmented perspective within a dualist\u2014integrationist typology. The following is taken directly from his post:<\/p>\n

Strong Digital Dualism<\/strong>: The digital and the physical are\u00a0different realities<\/em>, have different properties, and\u00a0do not interact<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mild Digital Dualism<\/strong>: The digital and physical are\u00a0<\/em>different<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>realities<\/em>, have different properties, and\u00a0do interact<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mild Augmented Reality<\/strong>: The digital and physical are part of\u00a0one reality<\/em>, have\u00a0different properties<\/em>, and interact.<\/p>\n

Strong Augmented Reality<\/strong>: The digital and physical are part of\u00a0one reality<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0have the same properties<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Jurgenson champions the \u201cmild augmented reality\u201d approach, and I agree. He critiques other writers, however, not only for theorizing within the problematic realms of strong digital dualism, mild digital dualism, and strong augmented reality, but also for shifting seamlessly between perspectives. I argue here that this slippery and seemingly sloppy theorizing is the product of a slippery reality, in which objects of inquiry fall differentially and sometimes simultaneously into different levels of digitality. To be sure, Jurgenson and others have noted that some realities are\u00a0more physical<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0more digital<\/em>.\u00a0 My idea here is not new. Rather, I simply hope to articulate the digital\/physical empirical spectrum more explicitly.<\/p>\n

To do so, I map Jurgenson\u2019s typology onto empirical reality, arguing that theorists\u2019 movement between typological categories may reflect their inadequate attempts at a general theory of technology rooted in particular technological forms. In order to transfer from theory to empirical reality, I have shifted the typological labels, and added one extra category. The key difference between Jurgenson\u2019s theoretical typology and my empirical one, is that his has only one \u201cacceptable\u201d category, whereas each of my categories, excluding the first and the last, describe potential realities for technological objects of study.<\/p>\n

Empirical Dualism\/Integration Typology<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Pure Digital Dualism:\u00a0<\/strong>This is an Ideal Type in which digital and physical are fully separate, share no properties, and do not interact<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like Jurgenson\u2019s\u00a0strong dualism<\/em>,\u00a0pure dualism<\/em>\u00a0is an Ideal Type, a polar location against which to measure the level of digital\/physical integration. One would be hard pressed to find such an example in empirical reality (in fact, I argue it would be impossible to do so). The closest one might come to the fully physical, would be the experience of a hike through the wilderness, mapped on paper, unshared via Facebook. The closest one might come to the purely digital would be\u00a0bots playing video games<\/a>. Of course, the hiker\u2019s choice\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>post on Facebook (among other things) connects hir to the digital, just as the human creators of bots, and their programmed algorithms connect them to the physical.<\/p>\n

Mild Augmentated Reality<\/span>:\u00a0<\/strong>Highly digital or highly physical, with small amounts of digtal\/physical interaction<\/p>\n

This is most closely analogous to Jurgenson\u2019s\u00a0mild dualism<\/em>, but differs significantly in that it reflects augmented reality, rather than a true dualism. \u00a0Indeed, the examples above are, in reality, dualistic augmentation rather than purely dualist. Further examples include anonymous online spaces, virtual worlds, and face-to-face, non-documented\/shared interpersonal interactions.<\/p>\n

Augmented Reality:\u00a0<\/strong>Physical and digital are explicitly intertwined and mutually constitutive, but maintain unique properties<\/p>\n

This is analogous to Jurgenson\u2019s\u00a0mild augmented reality<\/em>. Here, we can think of livetweeting through a conference presentation. The presentation and its surrounding conversation are simultaneously physical and digital, and mutually constitutive, but each component has explicitly unique properties. For instance, text versus speech, longevity of the content, temporal orientation.<\/p>\n

Strong Augmented Reality<\/span>:\u00a0<\/strong>Physical and digital, though maintaining separate properties, are deeply intertwined, mutually constitutive, and inseparable<\/p>\n

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This does not have an analogous category in Jurgenson\u2019s typology, but refers simply to augmented reality in which the digital and physical are *very* closely intertwined. Integrationist augmentation, for example, is represented by motion activated virtual reality, in which the digital environment guides cognitive and bodily movement, \u00a0is navigated through \u00a0bodily and cognitive movement, and adjusts to bodily and cognitive movement.<\/p>\n

Pure Integration:\u00a0<\/strong>The physical and digital are one in the same.<\/p>\n

Like\u00a0strong digital dualism<\/em>, and\u00a0pure digital dualism\u00a0<\/em>this is an Ideal Type, non-existent in empirical reality. The closest one might come to this are some medical devices in which the physical body and its digital regulatory technologies mutually shape one another and merge together (e.g. a pacemaker becomes part of the person and hir bodily rhythms, just as tissue and blood become part of the pacemaker).<\/p>\n

My purpose in constructing this typology is twofold. First, \u201ctechnology\u201d refers to an almost infinite set of objects, with distinct particularities. Second, categorical attempt to capture empirical reality are always mere approximations, and their demarcating boundaries are necessarily porous.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0With these two points in mind, I argue that general theories of\u00a0\u201cTechnology\u201d<\/em>\u00a0must be fluid enough to move through porous empirical boundaries, and precise enough to account for the particularities of\u00a0\u201ctechnologies.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>The augmented perspective, I argue, \u00a0possesses these key properties.<\/p>\n

The theoretical missteps and slippery techniques that Jurgenson decries, I argue, result from attempts to either theorize all technology as though it fits within a single typological box, or contrarily, to move between typological boxes without careful attention to empirical nuances.<\/p>\n

Pic:\u00a0http:\/\/www.our-picks.com\/archives\/2007\/01\/01\/how-interactive-can-a-video-game-get\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow Jenny on Twitter\u00a0@Jup83<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, in response to Jurgenson’s earlier typology of dualist theorizing, \u00a0I typologized empirical\/experiential reality upon a porous continuum between pure digital dualism and pure integration. Each of these poles represents a problematic and unrealistic ideal type. The intervening categories, however, represent theorizable empirical situations. In an effort to explicitly link my argument to Jurgenson’s, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967,892,10695],"tags":[10447,18577,18578,3131,18574,18575,3505,18576,18558],"class_list":["post-13045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-essay","category-response","tag-digital-dualism","tag-empirical-reality","tag-experiential-reality","tag-nathan-jurgenson","tag-pure-dualism","tag-pure-integration","tag-social-theory","tag-take-two","tag-typology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13045"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13050,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13045\/revisions\/13050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}