“This being is the other after the death of the Other - not the same other at all: the other that results from the denial of the Other. The only interaction involved, in reality, belongs to the medium alone: to the machine become invisible. Mechanical automata still played on the difference between man and machine, and on the charm of this difference - something with which today's interactive and simulating automata are no longer concerned. Man and machine have become isomorphic and indifferent to each other: neither is other to the other. The computer has no other. That is why the computer is not intelligent. Intelligence comes to us from the other - always. That is why computers perform so well. Champions of mental arithmetic and idiots savants are autistic - minds for which the other does not exist and which, for that very reason, are endowed with strange powers. This is the strength, too, of the integrated circuit (the power of thought-transference might also be considered in this connection). Such is the power of abstraction. Machines work more quickly because they are unlinked to any otherness. Networks connect them up to one another like an immense umbilical cord joining one intelligence and its twin. Homeostasis between one and the same: all otherness has been confiscated by the machine. Does otherness survive anywhere after being banished from this entire psychodramatic superstructure? Is there a physics as well as a metaphysics of the Other? Is there a dual, not just a dialectical, form of otherness? Is there still a form of the Other as destiny, and not merely as a psychological or social partner of convenience?” DestinyIntelligenceAbsenceOthernessMan And Machine Book:The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena Source: The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
“Conrad tillhör de sjömän som får uppleva hur ångan triumferar och seglen försvinner från haven. Han befinner sig mitt inne i ett väldigt maktskifte. En tusenårig tradition bryts och ett helt nytt element förs in. På segelfartyget är det kaptenen och hans män som är förmedlarna mellan Gud och världen. De fångar in och tyglar vinden som driver fartyget framåt. Seglaren lever i nära förbindelse med naturen, som han måste böja sig för, som han betjänar och utnyttjar. När ångan kom, togs makten från kaptenen och gavs åt maskinisten i maskindjupet. Man seglade inte på havet längre utan plöjde sig genom det. Befälet på bryggan flyttades ned, förnedrades, hade blott själva navigeringen kvar och inte kraftöverföringen.” Joseph ConradSeafaringSteam EngineMan And Machine Book:Färd med Mörkrets hjärta: En bok om Joseph Conrads roman Source: Färd med Mörkrets hjärta: En bok om Joseph Conrads roman