Author: Walter

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Ontology of Cyberspace

koepsell (link dead Tuesday, February 22, 2011 but rescued from the archives now here.). (and in Google Drive 

David R. Koepsell, The Ontology of Cyberspace: Philosophy, Law, and the Future of Intellectual Property. Chicago and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 2000.
Reviewed by Arthur L. Morin

Law is a system of categorization. At the ideal level, one purpose of this system is to help the social system achieve justice. Though not stated so straightforwardly, this is David R. Koepsell’s position in his book The Ontology of Cyberspace: Philosophy, Law, and the Future of Intellectual Property.1 There is, of course, a dynamic interrelation between the legal system of categorization and the socio-cultural system(s) of categorization of which it is a part. Koepsell realizes this, or else he would not have been able to detect the disjunction between what software is and how it has been treated in the legal system. But what he does not seem to fully appreciate is that ontology does not necessarily beget justice. This is the First Problem — the distinction between ontology (what something is) and justice — and I will return to it later.

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Words of War

Experts worry that war on terrorism will be seen as crusade against Islam

By SALLY BUZBEE
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush calls it a “crusade,” a war against a new kind of evil. But using such a term, loaded with historical baggage about religious wars, could alienate moderate Muslims that the United States needs, some experts caution.

It is becoming clear to me that the Language of the current times – and the psychological depths it taps into is of vital importance! Words of War leads to a war of words on the net, but can unleash forces that go well beyond words. Good comments in this article by George Lakoff.

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Cyberselfish Review

http://otal.umd.edu/~rccs/books/borsook/index.html

Although Paulina Borsook has been writing about cyberculture for over a decade, most academics first discovered her via “The Memories of a Token: An Aging Berkeley Feminist Examines Wired,” Borsook’s chapter in the 1996 anthology Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace. Since then, Borsook has published a number of influential pieces in Salon and Mother Jones and, in 2001, published Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech. Aimée Morrison, a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Alberta who is working on a dissertation exploring the personal computer in 1980s literary and popular culture, reviews Cyberselfish, followed by a rejoinder from the author.

Interesting discussion.

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Books of the Month: August 2001

Books of the Month — Index August 2001

Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media. MIT Press, 2001. Reviewed by Katie Mondloch.

Scott McCloud, Zot!: Hearts and Minds. Published Online. Reviewed by Matt Wolf-Meyer.

Review Essay: William J. Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (MIT Press, 1996) and William J. Mitchell, e-topia: “Urban Life, Jim — But Not As We Know It” (MIT Press, 1999). Reviewed by Michael Gurstein.

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Visceral Technologies

While writing about Psyborgs I wanted to show how connected we are – our individual psyche and the collective – or that the ideas we have are integral to us and connected to their source – hence the desire to grab the Net to look-up – to be curious… I had the idea that ideas were close to the physical and that thought them we are tied to the cyberworlds. I looked up “visceral idea” in Google and found some interesting sites, notably this article from Marc Demarest. Lovely:

“Information wants out. And the computer wants in.”

What a nice idea!

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