John Johnston

An account of the creation of new forms of life and intelligence in cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence that analyzes both the similarities and the differences among these sciences in actualizing life.

In The Allure of Machinic Life, John Johnston examines new forms of nascent life that emerge through technical interactions within human-constructed environments—“machinic life”—in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence. With the development of such research initiatives as the evolution of digital organisms, computer immune systems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems, Johnston argues, machinic life has achieved a complexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right. Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, but always with the primary focus on the “objects at hand”—the machines, programs, and processes that constitute machinic life—Johnston shows how they come about, how they operate, and how they are already changing. This understanding is a necessary first step, he further argues, that must precede speculation about the meaning and cultural implications of these new forms of life.

Developing the concept of the “computational assemblage” (a machine and its associated discourse) as a framework to identify both resemblances and differences in form and function, Johnston offers a conceptual history of each of the three sciences. He considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives, including Lacanian psychoanalysis and “machinic philosophy.” He examines the history of the new science of artificial life and its relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems (as illustrated by a series of experiments carried out on various software platforms). He describes the history of artificial intelligence as a series of unfolding conceptual conflicts—decodings and recodings—leading to a “new AI” that is strongly influenced by artificial life. Finally, in examining the role played by neuroscience in several contemporary research initiatives, he shows how further success in the building of intelligent machines will most likely result from progress in our understanding of how the human brain actually works.

The Allure of Machinic Life

cybernetics, artificial life, and the new AI

The allure of machinic life

For the Use of Schools

Elements of Chemistry

The History of Chemistry ...

Containing, in a Condensed Form, All the Most Important Facts and Principles of the Science : Designed for a Text Book in Colleges and Other Seminaries of Learning

A Manual of Chemistry on the Basis of Dr. Turner's Elements of Chemistry

Terese Tse Bartholomew

Honolulu Academy of Arts

"The Dragon's Gift offers a rare opportunity to introduce, to the wider international audience, some of the most sacred Buddhist images of Bhutan. From the wealth of material surveyed, the organizers of the exhibition have selected over one hundred objects of superior aesthetic achievement and deep religious significance, the vast majority of which have never before been seen in the West. Nearly all of the works of art presented in this catalogue are from active temples and monasteries and remain in ritual use. Most of the items are painted or textile thangkas or gilt bronze sculptures which date primarily from the 17th to the 19th centuries - a golden age in the Buddhist arts of Bhutan. Ranging from depictions of Tantric deities to individualized portraits of Buddhist masters, the exhibition and catalogue present outstanding works of art with a wide iconographic scope. For the Buddhist people of Bhutan, these sacred items are conceived as supports along the journey to enlightenment, and are of vital spiritual significance. Complementing the presentation of sacred works of art is the documentation of the ancient Cham dances of Bhutan, to which the dance preservation team was given privileged entree. Having documented over three hundred hours of sacred and secular dances, they have made a first assay of one of the few surviving treasures of the trans-Himalayan movement tradition. These differing approaches to the visual and moving arts provide further insight into the unique experience of Buddhism in Bhutan. A brief sampling of the variety of extant dance lineages - some many centuries old - is included on the DVD contained within the catalogue."--Publisher's website.

The Sacred Arts of Bhutan

The Dragon's Gift

A History of the Towns of Bristol and Bremen in the State of Maine, Including the Pemaquid Settlement

A Manual of Chemistry, on the Basis of Dr. Turner's Elements of Chemistry

Manual of chemistry on the basis of Turner's elements of chemsitry

In Information Multiplicity, Johnston describes how fractalized realism has redefined thought itself - from the High Modernist "stream of consciousness" into what the machine philosopher Daniel Dennett refers to as "multiple drafts" or "circuits" operating concurrently in the human brain. In a series of close readings, Johnston traces how such a viral influx of information into human consciousness has been replicated in works by Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow and Vineland), Joseph McElroy (Lookout Cartridge), William Gaddis (JR), Don DeLillo (Libra), and William Gibson (Neuromancer).

American Fiction in the Age of Media Saturation

Information Multiplicity

Although published many decades ago, William Gaddis's The Recognitions is only now beginning to receive the critical attention it deserves. Carnival of Repetition, the first full-length study of the novel, is a sophisticated analysis that places it in a new literary and cultural context . This novel of the 1950 s is unlike anything else from that decade. It harks back to the works of high modernism (exemplified by Joyce's Ulysses) and looks forward to postmodern fiction (especially as practiced by Barth, Pynchon, and DeLillo). Imitation is its major theme, one that Gaddis pursues on many levels, across several continents, into mazes of arcane knowledge and bogus scholarship, and even into the novel's structure through the repetition of prior texts and the interplay between literal and disguised quotation. Through an endless play of repetition, Gaddis con­founds the reader's recognition of similarity and difference. Johnston uses the theories of Bakhtin and Deleuze (and others, such as Julia Kristeva) to map out a context for this most unusual and difficult work. From Bakhtin, he appropriates the concepts of "carnivalesque" fiction and dialogism (or a plurality of independent voices, no one more important than another). From Deleuze, he borrows the idea of the simulacrum, a copy that presupposes no original and that becomes meaningful through a process of infinite repetition. With these instruments, Johnston analyzes the labyrinth of copy and counterfeit that Gaddis constructs in his novel.

Gaddis's "The Recognitions" and Postmodern Theory

Carnival of Repetition

History and Memories of No. 149 (East India) Squadron, 1918/19-1937/56

Strong by Night 'Fortis Nocte'

Designed as a Text-book for Colleges ...

A Manual of Chemistry, on the Basis of Turner's Elements of Chemistry; Containing, in a Condensed Form, All the Most Important Facts and Principles of the Science

Designed as a Text-book ...

John Johnston

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