[-empyre-] real vs. unreal

[Gregory Ulmer]

  On 4/28/11 11:03 PM, Will Pappenheimer wrote:
> My approach-  added to Tamiko's, would be 2 fold:
>
> Generally-  since reality is pretty hard to define in the first place, and always subject to our tampering with it, arguments separating it out or contrasting it to something else are going to fall apart at some point.
>
> Specifically- since net objects and net communications increasingly are incorporated into our entire experience, they are becoming part of the arena that we can call "real". Example, "Oh so you have a business, but do you have a website?"
>
> So creating net objects or net constructions that appear as "augmented reality", that have location coordinates, are "real" just like adding anything to the physical environment is real. It's not just something depicting something else. It's definitely not imaginary! Nor am I sure that the linguistical sign analysis works so well in this case.
>
> I think we are in need of a new definition of existence, one that includes the digital or networked object.
>
> Will Pappenheimer
> 698 Hart St
> Brooklyn  NY 11221
> Cell: 347-526-5302
> Email: willpap at gmail.com
> www.willpap-projects.com
>
>
>
>
>

Hi Will

You knew I couldn’t resist this opportunity to introduce apparatus 
theory into the conversation (or a brief sally). You, (John)Craig and I 
have collaborated on this question at various times, that is, on 
electracy as apparatus (being to digital technology what literacy is to 
alphabetic writing). Heuretics (logic of invention) is a procedure for 
answering your appeal, working from an analogy with how literacy was 
invented in the Academy and Lyceum (et al). The question is not (just) 
“existence,” but “metaphysics,” meaning the category (classification) 
system of a social machine, extracting from Real a “reality” (that which 
is accessible to our manipulation). “What is the metaphysics of AR?” is 
the immediate question. Answer begins by contrast: we know that whatever 
electracy will have been, it will not be the same as literacy or orality 
(both of which persist and adapt to the new apparatus). AR reality is 
not based on Greek or Indo-European natural language, is not accounted 
for by grammar, and hence does not involve subject-object orientation. 
It is not concerned with propositional logic, that is, declarative 
statements of what is determinable as true/false (it is not organized by 
logic). There are no “things” in AR, meaning isolated entities 
manifested through properties sorted according to essence/accident, and 
archived in dictionaries as concepts. In fact, we think electrate 
metaphysics only be analogy with “category,” the term Aristotle 
appropriated from jurisprudence (where it meant “indictment”) for 
service as a philosophical concept. Aristotle’s categories determined 
what it was possible to say about anything constrained by criteria of 
truth (and correspond roughly to the five Ws of journalism). AR may 
channel all these features of literacy, but its potential is elsewhere, 
native to the emerging apparatus of electracy. Nor is electracy 
something imposed by theory. The projects, programs, and works featured 
this month (and every month!) on this list are scenes of experiment 
relevant to a digital metaphysics.

The preceding paragraph sketches only the contrast of AR metaphysics, 
but I meant for this post to be a question for you and the other 
contributors. It has to do with this invention analogy – that “being” 
(as Heidegger said) is thought only through writing (it is an emergent 
possibility of literacy). Could you comment (further) on the experience 
of AR (making but also receiving), on the manner of thought and/or 
feeling that it provokes or supports? The question is related to your 
appeal regarding “existence” – concerning the dimension of Real opened 
by AR for reality.

Thanks

Greg Ulmer

-- 
*Gregory L. Ulmer*
http://www.english.ufl.edu/~glue
http://heuretics.wordpress.com
  University of Florida