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Acting Bodies and Social Networks analyzes the complex interactions
of body, mind and microelectronic technologies. Internationally
renowned scholars look into the nature of the mind - a combination
of thought, perception, emotion, will and imagination - as well as
the ever-increasing impact and complexity of microelectronic
technologies. The proliferation of these technologies facilitates a
profound change in the boundaries between bodies and technologies.
These technologies expand the temporal and spatial existence of
humans; today, people can instantly communicate all over the world
and overcome time and space restraints by using the latest
available microelectronic technologies. The first volume, The Body
as Social Icon, examines how memory is affected by the new
technology and the related theoretical issues while the second,
Mapping Bodies in a Networked Space, deals with the influence of
the new technologies on everyday life practices. At the
"information portal," the brain's capacity is loosing its ability
to retain information. In 2004, a number of well known
neuroscientists, including Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, wrote a
review about the ethical dilemma computer technologies raise,
stating that "humanity's ability to alter its own brain function
might well shape history as powerfully as the development of
metallurgy in the Iron Age." By introducing the concept of acting
body, this book contributes to discussion concerning the future
development of Homo sapiens. We consider the acting body as a
bridge between technology and working memory, which entails a
radical change in our approach to the social sciences.
The new boundaries between bodies and technologies constitute one
of the most important developments in the last fifty years. Through
technologies we not only change the relations between a natural
given, the body, and a human-made artefact -- the technology but
also change the ways we experience the world. How close are we to a
world in which the abilities of machines are indistinguishable from
those of the species that invented them? Our encounters with the
new technologies change the cognitive processes and influences the
modes of processing information. Moreover, it raises the question
of the nature of human beings. Traversing body as emotive- being-
in- the world and body as location culturally and socially
constructed, there is a third dimension: the dimension of
technological. Are we able to use these new dimension as a creative
interface between the emotional brain, the acting body, and ICTS?
In answering these questions, the book explores the action of
bodies in technology, that is, how the sense of our bodies and of
our orientation in the world are affected by information and
communication technologies. It contributes therefore to the
world-wide discussion and debates on the impact of technology,
especially information technology, on the lives of human beings in
the age of globalization, in particular to the present thinking of
the relationship between technology and embodiment.
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