Poster presented at 1st Workshop on Philosophy of Human+Computer Music Royal Musical Association Music Philosophy Study Group workshop on philosophy of human+computer music, 4 July 2014.

1. `
Computer Music and Posthumanism: David Roden, Open
University
Posthumanism
Critical Posthumanism (CP)
•CP interrogates anthropocentrism in ethics,
politics and epistemology (Critical Theory and
Philosophy)
Speculative Posthumanism (SP)
•SP claims that wide descendants of current
humans could cease to be human via a history of
technical alteration (Metaphysics)
A philosophy is anthropocentric if it assigns
humans a superlative status that all or most
nonhumans lack.
Anthropocentrism in 3D
(Identity) The identity of humans/persons is
determinate. Thing identity is indeterminate or
interpretation-relative.
(Order) Humans/persons do not merely represent
the world but actively organize it, endowing it with
value, form or meaning. Things derive form, value
or meaning from human activity.
(Value) Human persons have special moral
status. There are no nonpersons with equivalent
or greater moral worth.
Post-Anthropocentric
Thought
• Extended Mind Theory/Embodied Cognition
• Cyborg Theory (Posthumanization as a
technogenetic process)
• Deconstruction/Assemblage Theory /
Continental Materialism/Actor-Network Theory
• Speculative Realism
• Philosophical Naturalism and Materialism
• Speculative Posthumanism (Unbounded)
SP: The Disconnection Thesis
Unbounded SP
A Wide Human Descendant is a Posthuman:
1.If it has ceased to belong to the human socio-
technical network as a result of technical
alteration.
2.If it is a wide human descendant of a posthuman
Computer Music and PAT • Posthumans must be functionally autonomous
(able to enlist ecological value and acquire
functions).
• But could have phenomenologies or forms of
agency that are no less considerable than those
of persons.
• In lieu of transcendental order constraints, we
can only evaluate posthuman lives by making
posthumans or becoming posthuman.
Musical Agency
•GUI’s and DAW culture, Algorithmic Improvisation
and Composition, Neural Networks, Cyborg
Performance
Extended Audition:
•Synthesis/Analysis/Audio-Processing as tools for
extending Auditory Phenomenology. Algorithmic
Phenomenology.
Sonic Reality
•Complexity, Indeterminacy and Ontological
Independence of Sound. The Inhuman (Lyotard).
Deconstruction of Musical Subjects and Objects:
•Musical Authorship and Works in the age of digital
reproducibility, Extended Listening,
•New musical singularities and subjectivities?
Is CM Disconnection Potent?
Anthropocentrism