포스트휴먼의 위가: 사이버·버츄얼 문학 읽기

Abstract

The Status of the Posthuman: A Reading of Cyber-Virtual LiteratureKim, Sang-Koo·Jun, Bong-chul As Cartesian ego or consciousness is annihilated under the influence of Poststructuralism, humanism is coming to an end, along with its transformation into posthumanism. In the background against which liberal humanism emphasizing the autonomous subject is on the decline and posthumanism fills its blank, there is the great progress in cybernetics, information theory, microbiology, virtual reality, and cognitive science. Since Nobert Wiener proposed it is theoretically possible to telegraph a human being as early as 1950s and much discourse on molecular biology regards information as the essential code the body expresses, the human may be reduced to a pattern of information. As a result, a new human form makes an appearance. It is the posthuman in which there are no essential differences between bodily existence and computer simulation, biological organism and cybernetic mechanism.The essay (1) examines the process in which the human transforms itself into the posthuman with the mechanical thought penetrating into the theory of the relation between mind and body, and (2) analyzes the types of the posthuman in such literary texts as Greg Bear's Blood Music, Cole Perriman's Terminal Games, Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2, and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, particularly based on the theory of Katherine Hayles, who explains the posthuman on the level of materiality, mutation, hyperreality, and information. Through this analysis, the essay concludes that the status of the posthuman should be established in ways that enhance our life.