Displaying: 41-60 of 530 documents

0.114 sec

41. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 10 > Issue: 3
Jeffrey Jacobson, Lynn Holden Virtual Heritage: Living in the Past
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Virtual Heritage (VH) is the use of electronic media to recreate or interpret culture and cultural artifacts as they are today or as they might have been in the past (Moltenbrey, 2001; Roehl, 1997). By definition, VH applications employ some kind of three dimensional representation; the means used to display it range from still photos to immersive Virtual Reality. Virtual Heritage is a very active area of research and development in both the academic and the commercial realms. (Roehl, 1997; Mitchell and Economou, 2000; Addison, 2000; Stone and Ojika, 2002; Champion, 2004b; Champion and Sekiguichi, 2004; Levy, 2004). Most VH applications are intended forsome kind of educational use. While the main activity of virtual heritage is to create ancient artifacts, the real goal is to understand ancient cultures.Most VH applications are architectural reconstructions, centered on a reconstructed building or monument. However, in the same way that archaeologists and historians study the artifacts because they are the primary cultural evidence we have, VH uses architecture as a frame for recreating ancient cultures. The larger goal of VH is to recreate ancient cultures, not as dead simulations, but as living museums where students/users can enter and understand a culture that is different from their own. The closest analog is the real-world living museums, where actors in period dress occupy a life-size historical setting and interact with the visitors. Ultimately, we would like to see the users themselves creating activities in the virtual space as a way of exploring different cultural viewpoints. For example, students who know about the Virtual Egyptian Temple (Jacobson and Holden, 2005) and the supporting material may attempt to recreate activities there. In doing so, they would learn about what is and is not possible in the architectural and cultural space.In this paper we will begin by reviewing the issues and tradeoffs around building the architectural models for VH applications. These models are crucial in themselves and many of the issues involved in designing and creating them also apply to the dynamic and interactive aspects of VR. Then, we will touch on issues of how to bring culture to life in VR, the strengths and limitations for VR technology for VH applications. Finally, we will present the Virtual Egyptian Temple, our current project, as a working example.
42. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 10 > Issue: 3
Richard Bartle Presence and Flow: Ill-Fitting Clothes for Virtual Worlds
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Virtual worlds are a class of computer game in which large numbers of players access a shared environment simultaneously to have fun. What “having fun” means, however, is not obvious. Players talk about immersion, which suggests to some commentators that their fun may derive from the well-known psychological concepts of presence and flow. However, although these states of mind are indeed important factors in immersion, they do not capture what players themselves understand by the term. To describe fully what players are experiencing requires an examination of identity exploration – an exploration which strongly echoes the structure of ancient myth.
43. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 10 > Issue: 3
Richard Coyne Thinking through Virtual Reality: Place, Non-Place and Situated Cognition
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Critics and researchers apply various criteria to evaluate the efficacy of VR, including the conformity of VR environments to the character of place. I wish to add a further test: do VR environments enable thought? The paper thus applies to VR the controversial proposition advanced by Clark and others that thinking, i.e. human cognitive processes, are situated and spatial. As a further term in this mix I introduce the concept of non-place, as elucidated by Augé and propose that non-places can be characterized as unthinking spaces, i.e. spaces that provide little assistance to the thought processes of their occupants. Perhaps non-places only offer thepossibilities afforded by a kind of cognitively impoverished instrumentalism. The conclusion from these propositions is that it is instructive to couch the problematics of VR environments in terms of non-places that do not easily accommodate thought, or thoughtful interaction, were it not that thought thrives on transitions, thresholds and boundary conditions between the strange and the familiar.
44. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 10 > Issue: 3
Erik Champion When Windmills Turn Into Giants: The Conundrum of Virtual Places
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
While many papers may claim that virtual environments have much to gain from architectural and urban planning theory, few seem to specify in any verifiable or falsifiable way, how notions of place and interaction are best combined and developed for specific needs. The following is an attempt to summarize a theory of place for virtual environments and explain both the shortcomings and the advantages of this theory.
45. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Bernadette Bensuade-Vincent, Xavier Guchet Nanomachine: One Word For Three Different Paradigms
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Scientists and engineers who extensively use the term “nanomachine” are not always aware of the philosophical implications of this term. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of nanomachine through a distinction between three major paradigms of machine. After a brief presentation of two well-known paradigms - Cartesian mechanistic machines and Von Neumann’s complex and uncontrolled machines – we will argue that Drexler’s model was mainly Cartesian. But what about the model of his critics? We propose a third model - Gilbert Simondon’s notion of concrete machines – which seems more appropriate to understand nanomachines than the notion of “soft machines”. Finally we review a few strategies currently used to design nanomachines, in an effort to determine which paradigm they belong to.
46. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Peter Krebs Virtual Models and Simulations: A Different Kind of Science?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The personal computer has become the primary research tool in many scientific and engineering disciplines. The role of the computer has been extended to be an experimental and modelling tool both for convenience and sometimes necessity. In this paper some of the relationships between real models and virtual models, i.e. models that exist only as programs and data structures, areexplored. It is argued that the shift from experimenting with real objects to experimentation with computer models and simulations may also require a new approach for evaluating scientific theories derived from these models. Accepting the additional sets of assumptions that are associated with computer models and simulations requires ‘leaps of faith’, which we may not want to make in order to preserve scientific rigor. There are problems in providing acceptable arguments and explanations as to why a particular computer model or simulation should be judged scientifically sound, plausible, or even probable. These problems not only emerge from models that are particularly complex, but also in models that suffer from being too simplistic.
47. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Joseph C. Pitt, Pieter E. Vermaas, Peter-Paul Verbeek Editorial Statement
48. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Paul Thompson Theorizing Technological and Institutional Change: Alienability, Rivalry and Exclusion Cost
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Formal, informal and material institutions constitute the framework for human interaction and communicative practice. Three ideas from institutional theory are particularly relevant to technical change. Exclusion cost refers to the effort that must be expended to prevent others from usurping or interfering in one’s use or disposal of a given good or resource. Alienability refers to the ability to tangibly extricate a good or resource from one setting, making it available for exchange relations. Rivalry refers to the degree and character of compatibility in various uses for goods. The paper closes with a note on how attention to these factors might be useful ways toconceptualize what Langdon Winner has called “the technological constitution of society,” and what Andrew Feenberg has theorized as “secondary rationalization,” as well as within more practical contexts of technical research, development and design.
49. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Jonas Clausen, John Cantwell Reasoning With Safety Factor Rules
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Safety factor rules are used for drawing putatively reasonable conclusions from incomplete datasets. The paper attempts to provide answers to four questions: “How are safety factors used?”, “When are safety factors used?”, “Why are safety used?” and “How do safety factor rules relate to decision theory?”. The authors conclude that safety factor rules should be regarded as decision methods rather than as criteria of rightness and that they can be used in both practical and theoretical reasoning. Simplicity of application and inability or unwillingness to defer judgment appear to be important factors in explaining why the rules are used.
50. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Philip Brey Theorizing the Cultural Quality of New Media
51. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Joseph Reagle, Jr. Bug Tracking Systems as Public Spheres
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Based upon literature that argues technology, and even simple classification systems, embody cultural values, I ask if software bug tracking systems are similarly value laden. I make use of discourse within and around Web browser software development to identify specific discursive values, adopted from Ferree et al.'s "normative criteria for the public sphere," and conclude by arguing that such systems mediate community concerns and are subject to contested interpretations by their users.
52. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 1
Marc J. De Vries Gilbert Simondon and the Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts
53. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 1
David Bzdak On Amnesia and Knowing-How
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this paper, I argue that Stanley and Williamson’s 2001 account of knowledge-how as a species of knowledge-that is wrong. They argue that a claim such as “Hannah knows how to ride a bicycle” is true if and only if Hannah has some relevant knowledge-that. I challenge their claim by considering the case of a famous amnesic patient named Henry M. who is capable of acquiring and retaining new knowledge-how but who is incapable of acquiring and retaining new knowledge-that. In the first two sections of the paper, I introduce the topic of knowledge-how and give a brief overview of Stanley and Williamson’s position. In the third and fourth sections, I discuss the case of Henry M. and explain why it is plausible to describe him as someone who can retain new knowledge-how but not new knowledge-that. In the final sections of the paper, I argue that Henry M.’s case does indeed provide a counterexample to Stanley and Williamson’s analysis of knowing-how as a species of knowing-that, and I consider and respond to possible objections to my argument.
54. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 1
Robert McGrail Working with Substance: Actor-Network Theory and the Modal Weight of the Material
55. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 1
Robert Rosenberger Seeing the World through Technology and Art
56. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 1
Clive Lawson An Ontology of Technology: Artefacts, Relations and Functions
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Ontology tends to be held in deep suspicion by many currently engaged in the study of technology. The aim of this paper is to suggest an ontology of technology that will be both acceptable to ontology’s critics and useful for those engaged with technology. By drawing upon recent developments in social ontology and extending these into the technological realm it is possible to sustain a conception of technology that is not only irreducibly social but able to give due weight to those features that distinguish technical objects from other artefacts. These distinctions, however, require talk of different kinds of causal powers and different types of activity aimed at harnessing such powers. Such discussions are largely absent in recent technological debates, but turn out to be significant both for ongoing technology research and for the recasting of some more traditional debates within the philosophy of technology
57. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 1
Peter-Paul Verbeek Disclosing Visions of Technology
58. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 1
Thomas W. Staley The Coding of Technical Images of Nanospace: Analogy, Disanalogy, and the Asymmetry of Worlds
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper argues that intrinsically metaphorical leaps are required to interpret and utilize information acquired at the atomic scale. Accordingly, what we ‘see’ with our instruments in nanospace is both fundamentally like, and fundamentally unlike, nanospace itself; it involves both direct translation and also what Goodman termed “calculated category mistakes.” Similarly, and again necessarily, what we ‘do’ in nanospace can be treated as only metaphorically akin to what we do in our comfortable mesoworld. These conclusions indicate that future developments in nanotechnology will rely, in part, on the creation of more sophisticated metaphorical codes linking our world to nanospace, and I propose some initial possibilities along these lines.
59. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 2
Val Dusek Ihde’s Instrumental Realism and the Marxist Account of Technology in Experimental Science
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Edgar Zilsel offers a Marxist account of the rise of experimental science avoiding both crude determinism and the anti-scientific bias of much “Western Marxism.” This account supplements Don Ihde’s instrumental realism with a social account of the systematic extension of perception by instrumentation. The social contact of non-literate craftspeople with purely intellectual scholars forged the social basis of what became technoscience.
60. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 12 > Issue: 2
Larry A. Hickman Postphenomenology and Pragmatism: Closer Than You Might Think?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this commentary on Evan Selinger’s book Postphenomenology: A Critical Companion to Ihde, I begin with Carl Mitcham’s claim that with respect to Don Ihde’s “postphenomenology” there are “challenges both to and from pragmatism.” I discuss four points on which postphenomenology and pragmatism seem to be in agreement, and then two points on which I believe pragmatism offers a program that socially thicker.