Transcendental philosophy and artificial life

Banham, Gary (2001) Transcendental philosophy and artificial life. Culture Machine, 3. ISSN 1465-4121

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Abstract

This investigation is intended to bring to light some reasons for connecting the notion of artificial life to certain kinds of interpretation of transcendental philosophy. Since the conception of a machine has undergone an apparently decisive alteration in the post-Newtonian world it will be part of the burden of this piece to suggest that the possibility of the evolutionary development of life beyond the organic is itself a product of new thought about the relation between the organic and the processes of interpretation and understanding that we have summarized under the heading “mind”. The ultimate point of the piece will be to suggest both that the underlying conceptual approaches to artificial life have serious deficiencies and to indicate that the development of which they are a part nonetheless has an essential relationship to futurity