Matthew S . Lindia

In a recent article, Jecker and Ko propose that a capabilities approach can be useful as an ethical framework for evaluating the use of BCI applications. Jecker and Ko defend this application, in part, because a capabilities list is not necessarily unchanging, but can account for rapid enhancements in human abilities. In this commentary, I argue that, though the capabilities approach is provisional, its primary relevance for BCI emerges from the ways in which capabilities remain constant amidst changing human abilities.

In the spirit of Slavoj Žižek's book, Hegel in a Wired Brain, this article asks how the questions central to Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics are changed and complicated by the possibility of brain-to-brain communication and the datafication of thought made potential through brain-computer interfaces (BCI). By taking a phenomenological approach to understanding the nature of communication through a technology that does not require language for the transmission of ideas, this article explores how BCI communication confronts the ontological character of interpretation as presented by Gadamer while also juxtaposing how the insights of Gadamer and Heidegger concerning temporality problematize materialist foundations of BCI communication. In the final analysis, it is argued that thought only becomes meaningful in accord with the temporality of Dasein and that hermeneutics remains central in BCI communication because the material replication of thought does not overcome the particular temporalities of historically effected consciousnesses.

The question of causality in the invention of the alphabet has long eluded the theories of media scholars and linguists alike. In spite of the attention to the effects of the alphabet and literacy within the tradition of media ecology, not much work exists tracing the effects back to the causes and explaining why the alphabet emerged in the first place. By applying the principles of McLuhan's understanding of Aristotle's notion of formal cause, the author approaches the invention of the alphabet as a grammatical step in the evolution of written language. Most simply, this article proposes that the development of alphabetic writing was required as an unintended consequence of writing via inscription on clay and stone tablets (as opposed to writing via application on paper, papyrus or bamboo). The author then situates this claim within the broader context of the evolution of grammar and punctuation, demonstrating that the figure of writing and grammar has shifted and evolved notably with every transition of a new medium on which words are fixed, even up through the electric and digital ages. Finally, this article situates the evolution of emoji within the context of grammatical evolution, and not, as some have asserted, as the return to pictographic language.

This thesis works to develop a heuristic technique – the Imbrication Model – for
understanding technologies relations to other objects. These relations include objects which contribute to the actualization of a technology and objects which are influenced by the technology. The model draws upon four fields of existing scholarship: Graham Harman’s object- oriented ontology (OOO); Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (ANT), social construction of technology (SCOT), and media ecology. The Imbrication Model is developed by proposing a novel re-reading of the implications of SCOT and media ecology through the philosophies of objects and non-human actors in OOO and ANT. Particularly, this occurs by stating that technologies relate to objects in one of four ways: if an object relates to a technology, it must be either a performative motive, an ostensive motive, a performative consequence, or an ostensive consequence. These four concepts make up the four quadrants of the Imbrication Model.
The model is demonstrated by applying it to the object of the QWERTY keyboard. Finally, the temporal implications of motive and consequence are considered in relation to technological changes over time. This principle is explored via the Imbrication Model through tessellations, where the four quadrants of one technology are diagrammatically compared to the four quadrants of another technology.
Ultimately, the unique emphasis of objects as the centerpiece of this thesis enables it to provoke non-obvious questions and facilitate thought along lines which are helpful in emphasizing the importance of indirect relations in media studies.