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September 14, 2004
The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet
| Title | The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet | |
| Author | Ken Goldberg (ed) | |
| Publisher | MIT Press, MA | |
| Date | 2001 | |
| ISBN | 0-262-57154-4 | |
| Reviewed by | Jane Szita | |
| The telescope, telephone, and television were developed to transmit knowledge from afar, while telerobots, controlled remotely, were invented in the 1950s in order to act at a remove. Both knowledge and action at a distance are being dramatically extended in terms of scope and reach by the Internet. In response to this increasing empowerment, The Robot in the Garden not only opens a critical debate on telerobotics, it also introduces a new subject: telepistemology — the study of knowledge acquired at a distance. Central to telepistemology are issues such as access, agency and authority - not to mention authenticity, for the Internet’s capacity to deceive is already well documented. The questions raised by such considerations are pondered in these pages by leading contemporary thinkers in philosophy, art, history and engineering, with a postscript by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Through the interdisciplinary approach, an ambitiously broad take on the subject is made possible, and the questions raised emerge as fundamental to our future as a species. If technology continues to make more and more of our knowledge indirect, then how will we authenticate what we cannot observe? And if our relationships with people and objects continue to become progressively more distanced, then how will our relationship with the world alter? Are we to be detached spectators, or informed actors? The beauty of being an informed actor is our ability to experience flow — to experience our world seamlessly and fully occupied - where does this come from, when we are no longer required to act? By addressing such questions, the contributors to this book take the subject out of the realm of nerdy sciencespeak and place it firmly in the philosophical tradition. | ||
Posted by Books Editor at September 14, 2004 09:33 PM