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N. KATHERINE HAYLES is professor of English atthe University of California, Los Angeles. She holds degrees in both chemistry and English. She is the author of The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the Twentieth Century (1984) and Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science (1990) and is the editor of Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science (1991), the last published by the University of Chicago Press. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1999 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1999 Printed in the United States of America 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 3 4 5 ISBN (cloth): 0-226-32145-2 ISBN (paper): 0-226-32146-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hayles, N. Katherine. How we became posthuman : virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics / N. Katherine Hayles. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 0-226-32145-2 (cloth: alk. paper). - ISBN: 0-226-32146-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) l. Artificial intelligence. 2. Cybernetics. 3. Computer science. 4. Virtual reality. 5. Virtual reality in literature. I. Title. Q335.H394 1999 003'.5---dc21 98-36459 CIP SThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for the Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. Acknowledgments / ix Prologue / xi 1. Toward Embodied Virtuality / 1 2. Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers / 25 Contents 3. Contesting for the Body ofInformation: The Macy Conferences on Cybernetics / 50 4. Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Wiener and Cybernetic Anxiety / 84 5. From Hyphen to Splice: Cybernetic Syntax in Limho / 113 6. The Second Wave of Cybernetics: From Reflexivity to Self-Organization / 131 7. Turning Reality Inside Out and Right Side Out: Boundary Work in the Mid-Sixties Novels of Philip K. Dick / 160 8. The MaterialityofInformatics / 192 9. Narratives of Artificial Life / 222 10. The Semiotics of Virtuality: Mapping the Posthuman / 247 11. Conclusion: What Does It Mean to Be Posthuman? / 283 Notes / 293 Index /325 Prologue You are alone in the room, except for two computer terminals flickering