«Schreiben ist wie küssen, nur ohne Lippen». Die virtuelle Liebe in “Gut gegen Nordwind” (2006) von Daniel Glattauer: [«Writing is like kissing, only without lips». Virtual love in “Gut gegen Nordwind” (2006) by Daniel Glattauer]

Daniel Glattauer’s novel Gut gegen Nordwind (2006), English translation: Love virtually (2011) is the first email-novel of German literature. The love triangle between Leo Leike, Emma and Bernhard Rothner is narrated through 785 emails. Their “computer mediated communication” gives birth to a virtual world that is separated from their ordinary lives. This virtual dimension becomes the projection screen for their identities, bodily representations and desires. It also becomes their cage as they will never meet in reality

The history of chatbots: the journey from psychological experiment to educational object

Chatbots represent a strong and distinctive theme in the current literature on technology in education. What is lacking, however, is an analysis of them in terms of historical development or deeper historical-discursive classification. This paper focuses on the history of chatbots and places it in the context of a critical reflection on studies focusing on chatbots as educational objects between 2006-2021. It offers an analysis of each study and places them in the context of the development of the field as a whole. The study identifies three vital discourses that can be identified in the development of chatbots from a historical perspective - Turing-oriented, Searle-oriented and educational interaction-oriented

The Woes of Scientific Realism

This paper investigated the disagreement between Realists and Anti-realists on the observable and unobservable distinction in scientific practice. Whilethe realists maintain that machines and gadgets can simulate the human act of perception there-by making all realities under the screen of science observable, the anti-realists or the instrumentalists insist that what cannot be observed with the human senses even if detected with gadgets are not observable. This paper contended against the realist position which says that machines can simulate the human activity of perception. Hence the distinction between what is observable and unobservable is shown to be indisputable