分类：AI & the Future of Technology

Doctoral Research Plan (Media Phenomenology)

AI & the Future of Technology2010.04.13
Doctoral Research Plan (Media Phenomenology)
Following Professor Wu, the direction I am undoubtedly taking as my main focus in the doctoral stage is the philosophy of technology in phenomenology; more specifically, my research should be organized around the theme of “media phenomenology.” Under the theme of media phenomenology, my research can unfold from three angles, or in three ways. Depending on the progress of study and research over the next few years, the final doctoral dissertation will be confined to one of these angles and developed under an appropriate title. The themes and angles proposed in this research plan are merely lines of inquiry, or points of entry, for the research. This theme mainly involves…
technology media phenomenology McLuhan
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2010年4月13日
A Cultural History, Technological History, and Intellectual History of Bathing

AI & the Future of Technology2009.07.31
A Cultural History, Technological History, and Intellectual History of Bathing
Now there are many people, especially urban residents, for whom bathing has become an indispensable part of daily life. Some people can scarcely imagine going three or five days in a row without bathing, let alone several months; to speak of people who do not bathe for months sounds almost like talking about aliens. Various things, once they become part of everyday life, are endowed with one or another sort of legitimacy, and thus become things that ought to be. Bathing, for example, is closely linked to the concept of “hygiene”: on the one hand, bathing is a natural thing—after all, isn’t bathing the expression of the “desire for cleanliness”…
technology China culture book reading
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2009年7月31日
When the End Seeps into the Process, So That the Means Too Become Ends

AI & the Future of Technology2009.07.15
When the End Seeps into the Process, So That the Means Too Become Ends
If doing certain things does not achieve the intended purpose (and doing something else might achieve it), then one may well regret it. And if doing certain things does achieve the intended purpose, but later one discovers that this purpose is not what one truly wanted, then one may also regret it. But there are some things one will not regret doing afterward: namely, those whose very process is the purpose, or, to put it another way, those whose purpose can be obtained on the spot in the course of the process itself. The most typical examples are games, and communication. Of course, you may regret becoming addicted to games,…
technology intentionality love purpose
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2009年7月15日
Langdon Winner: Do Artifacts Have Politics? — Translated by Gu Chi

AI & the Future of Technology2009.06.25
Langdon Winner: Do Artifacts Have Politics? — Translated by Gu Chi
This article’s existing Chinese translation appears in Wu Laoshi’s edited *Lectures on Philosophy of Technology*, translated by Liu Guoqi. That version is basically accurate and readable, though it still has many small problems. When I translated it, I mainly rendered it myself first and then revised it with reference to that translation. Although I did consult the existing Chinese version, this is after all my first complete translated work. Now that this course’s grades have come out, I might as well post the assignment here for the archive. The electronic edition of the English original can be found at: http://sts.nthu.edu.tw/tsts/trans/articles/ Do artifacts have politics? Langdon Winner Translated by Gu E…
technology book reading notes power
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2009年6月25日
Random Thoughts on Abacus and Numbers

AI & the Future of Technology2009.06.22
Random Thoughts on Abacus and Numbers
Speaking of which, it has been many years since I really had much contact with arithmetic. Even in high school, math competitions did not emphasize the actual operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, let alone during my entire university years. So much so that yesterday, when I suddenly had to handle a large number of digits in a number-guessing game, I abruptly discovered that the abacus in my mind had rusted over; moving each bead felt sluggish, and worse still, many of the beads had become badly loose, so that with one slip of the hand I would lose the exact count. After a few rounds my brain began…
technology mathematics touch
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2009年6月22日
Marx’s Theory of the Human from the Perspective of Philosophy of Technology (Lecture Notes for a Class Report in Marxist Philosophy)

AI & the Future of Technology2008.10.16
Marx’s Theory of the Human from the Perspective of Philosophy of Technology (Lecture Notes for a Class Report in Marxist Philosophy)
Since so many of the selected students are all speaking around Marx’s humanism, I think that as for the overall line of Marx’s anthropology, as well as the sorting out of some basic concepts such as alienation, everyone will probably do better than I can. In particular, the students of Marxist philosophy and Western philosophy should be well practiced in this. And whether in terms of overall grasp or close reading of specific texts, I am an outsider; although I do have some of my own thoughts and takeaways, if other students can speak better here, then I need not make a fool of myself. I am not being modest….
technology freedom human nature Marx
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2008年10月16日
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed.: Media Ecology

AI & the Future of Technology2007.12.04
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed.: Media Ecology
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed., *Media Ecology: Intellectual Development and Multiple Perspectives*, translated by He Daokuan, Peking University Press, October 2007, 45 yuan This is another book in the Media Ecology translation series, a collection of essays on the development of media ecology. The core of the collection consists of several introductions to figures of major significance in the “intellectual development” of media ecology. The first figure is Mumford, the second is Ellul—there are two essays introducing Ellul, the second of which focuses specifically on his theological perspective. The third figure is Innis; the fourth is McLuhan; the fifth is Neil Postman, and here almost all of Postman’s important works are…
book reading media notes McLuhan
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2007年12月4日
Outline for the First Discussion in the Introduction to Philosophy of Technology

AI & the Future of Technology2007.04.12
Outline for the First Discussion in the Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
Instructions: 1. Every student enrolled in the course must prepare carefully in light of the lecture notes and assigned readings, and take an active part in discussion. This discussion class is also a quiz, and the grade will account for 20% of the final course grade. Anyone absent will receive a score of 0. Anyone who attends class but does not speak will receive a score of 0. 2. Audit students are welcome to prepare carefully and participate actively in discussion. 3. Every question should be prepared seriously, but questions in which one has greater interest and for which one has a stronger knowledge base may be given priority. Everyone…
philosophy technology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2007年4月12日
Useless Technology? — Reflections on Mumford’s Philosophy of Technology

AI & the Future of Technology2007.04.05
Useless Technology? — Reflections on Mumford’s Philosophy of Technology
Today’s introduction to philosophy of technology class talked about Mumford, and his views are very interesting. Mumford criticized the traditional account of human origins that says “man is the maker of tools,” replacing it with “man is the maker of symbols/meanings.” He upheld an idealist view of human nature, believing that human needs are first and foremost not material but spiritual. He thought that Maslow’s sequence—from the needs of survival, material provision, and food and clothing, all the way up to the needs for safety, aesthetics, and self-actualization—was exactly backwards: humans first have a need for self-actualization, and within any material need there already permeates a prior spiritual need. Mumford…
philosophy technology culture Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2007年4月5日
Supplementary Questions from the Marx Lecture in the Philosophy of Technology Class

AI & the Future of Technology2007.03.16
Supplementary Questions from the Marx Lecture in the Philosophy of Technology Class
Supplement to the classroom questions: My confusion arose because I had first listened to Professor Wu’s lecture at Tsinghua and read the transcript of Professor Wu’s remarks on “Technology as the difference of being,” and only then looked at Marx, where everything felt extremely, extremely familiar—so familiar that it seemed Marx and Professor Wu were basically saying the same thing! First let me talk about my reading of some of Marx’s views on “human essence” in the 1844 manuscripts: Marx says: “The externalization of labor appears … first, that labor is external to the worker, that it does not belong to his essence; that therefore he does not affirm…
technology freedom Wu Guosheng Marx
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2007年3月16日