Race: the difference that makes a difference

During the last two decades, critical enquiry into the nature of race has begun to enter the philosophical mainstream. The same period has also witnessed the emergence of an increasingly visible discourse about the nature of information within a diverse range of popular and academic settings. What is yet to emerge, however, is engagement at the interface of the two disciplines – critical race theory and the philosophy of information. In this paper, I shall attempt to contribute towards the emergence of such a field of enquiry by using a reflexive hermeneutic (or interpretative) approach to analyze the concept of race from an information-theoretical perspective, while reflexively analyzing the concept of information from a critical race-theoretical perspective. In order to facilitate a more concrete enquiry, the concept of information formulated by cyberneticist Gregory Bateson and the concept of race formulated by philosopher Charles W Mills will be placed at the centre of analysis. Crucially, both concepts can be shown to have a connection to the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, thereby justifying their selection as topics of examination on critical reflexive hermeneutic grounds

The nature of the artificial: augmenting Negrottian artificiality with neo-Whiteheadian naturality

In this paper, a theory of the artificial recently proposed by Negrotti (1999a, 1999b, 2001a, 2001b) is critically examined. First, a brief overview of this theory is presented. It is then argued that despite the merits of this scheme, principal of which are the self-evident simplicity of its conceptual foundations, its internal consistency (or theoretical coherence), and its possible overall correctness, it is, nonetheless, incomplete. This incompleteness is shown to arise as a direct consequence of the explicit affirmation of a number of problematic metaphysical assumptions about the nature (as essence or what-ness) of nature (as 'other' to the artificial). An attempt at resolving the problem of incompleteness by augmenting the Negrottian theory of artificiality with an alternative conception of nature (as 'other') grounded in Whiteheadian panexperientialism is made. It is shown that although panexperientialism provides an adequate framework for the conceptualisation of naturality, it does not provide a corresponding framework for artificiality, principally because it fails to adequately characterise the nature (as essence) of artifacts. In order to address this latter problem, it is argued that conventional Whiteheadian panexperientialism must be supplemented with a phenomenological account of artificing that describes the ontologically distinct manner in which artifacts come to be. An attempt at formulating such a 'neo-Whiteheadian' account grounded in the metaphysical thinking of Ladrière, Lee, and others is made. In closing, some implications of this alternative Whiteheadian conception of naturality and the attendant neo-Whiteheadian account of artifactuality for the project of "strong" artificiality (that is, the attempt to artifactually replicate natural phenomena) are briefly considered

Islam Between Inclusion and Exclusion: A (Decolonial) Frame Problem

In this chapter, the 'Frame Problem' in AI is mobilized as a trope in order to engage the 'question' concerning the inclusion and/or exclusion of Islam (and Muslims) from European – and, more broadly, 'Western' – society. Adopting a decolonial perspective, wherein body-political, geo-political and theo-political concerns are centered, the meaning and applicability of categorical dichotomies such as 'religion' and 'politics' and their relationship to the historical entanglement of 'religion' and 'race' in the formation of the modern world are interrogated in the context of understanding the nature of the relationship between Islam and Europe/'the West'. It is argued that the tendency within Western liberal democratic discourses to (1) frame the problem of Islamophobia and 'the Muslim question' in terms of misrepresentation – that is, misinformation, disinformation and 'distortion' of the flow of information – and (2) frame the issue of "Islam and Europe/'the West'" in terms of inclusion and/or exclusion of the members of a 'religious' minority into a post-modern, post- Christian/'secular' polity circumvents disclosure of the violent historically-constituted structural background or 'horizon' against which such 'options' are generated. The essay concludes by sketching some possible decolonial responses to this critical and existentially-problematic state of affairs

Decolonizing Information Narratives: Entangled Apocalyptics, Algorithmic Racism and the Myths of History

In what follows, some contemporary narratives about ‘the information society’ are interrogated from critical race theoretical and decolonial perspectives with a view to constructing a ‘counter-narrative’ purporting to demonstrate the embeddedness of coloniality—that is, the persistent operation of colonial logics—in such discourses

Transhumanism and/as Whiteness

Transhumanism is interrogated from critical race theoretical and decolonial perspectives with a view to establishing its ‘algorithmic’ relationship to historical processes of race formation (or racialization) within Euro-American historical experience. Although the Transhumanist project is overdetermined vis-à-vis its raison-d’être, it is argued that a useful way of thinking about this project is in terms of its relationship to the shifting phenomenon of ‘whiteness’. It is suggested that Transhumanism constitutes a techno-scientific response to the phenomenon of ‘White Crisis’ at least partly prompted by ‘critical’ posthumanist contestation of Eurocentrically-universal humanism

Testing Semi-strong Form Efficiency of Stock Market

The efficient market hypothesis suggests that stock markets are “informationally efficient”. That is, any new information relevant to the market is spontaneously reflected in the stock prices. A consequence of this hypothesis is that past prices cannot have any predictive power for future prices once the current prices have been used as an explanatory variable. In other words the change in future prices depends only on arrival of new information that was unpredictable today hence it is based on surprise information. Another consequence of this hypothesis is that arbitrage opportunities are wiped out instantaneously. Empirical tests of the efficient market hypothesis actually test for these consequences in various ways. Some of them have been summarised in earlier chapters. These tests generally could not conclusively accept the random-walk hypothesis of stock returns even when GARCH effects were accounted for. Many studies have found empirical regularities that are contrary to the efficient market hypothesis. For example, the monthly, weekly and daily returns on stocks tend to exhibit discernable patterns, such as seasonal affects, month of the year affect, day of the week affect, hourly affect etc. In case of Pakistan’s stock markets too such affects are identified. Such as the Ramadan affect [see Hussain and Uppal (1999)], seasonal effects and day of the week affect. Further, the wide spread use of “technical analysis” among stock traders and their ability to predict to some extent the direction of movements in the prices of individual stocks over medium term testifies to the existence of patterns and seasonal trends.

Orientalism and/as information: the indifference that makes a difference

In a recent work inspired by Borgman's [1] approach to exploring issues at the intersection of information and reality, Chapman [2] outlined a framework for thinking about issues at the intersection of information and religion, viz. information about religion, information for religion, and information as religion. This framework might be complemented by another in which the same issues – that is, information and religion – are reflexively engaged, viz. religion about information, religion for information, and religion as information. However, irrespective of which framework is engaged, in attempting to consider such intersections there is a need to consider how terms should be framed – that is, what 'information' and 'religion' means in each framework. In an earlier work [3] which introduced a reflexive hermeneutic framework wherein race is considered from an information-theoretical perspective and information is considered from a critical race-theoretical perspective, genealogical links between Bateson's [4] conceptualization of (a unit of) information as "a difference that makes a difference" and Kantian notions of difference were briefly explored. It was shown that a growing body of critical race philosophy scholarship has demonstrated, somewhat controversially, Kant's seminal contribution to what might be described as a modern 'scientific' concept of race. By way of reference to his writings on philosophical anthropology, which describe non-European 'races' in explicitly racist terms (as ontologically-inferior in some sense), it was argued that, insofar as Kant's thinking on race racism might not be accidental but rather essential to his philosophy1 – more specifically, his epistemology – it is possible that Kantian racism informs the Batesonian concept of information. For example, it was noted that Bateson’s concept of information, and Kant’s concept of aesthetic judgement which inspired it, are fundamentally teleological (or goal-oriented) in that they appeal to selection which is a purposeful act; in addition, attention was drawn to Bateson's assertion that difference entails classification and that all classification is hierarchic. This is significant since, as stated previously, Kant, arguably the primary genealogical source of Bateson's conception of information as grounded in difference, is also committed to a hierarchical conception of difference and, in his work on philosophical anthropology, to one in which difference is understood as 'otherness' or 'alterity', rather than change or alteration. Perhaps most significant for present purposes, however, is Bateson's distinction between what he calls 'Occidental Epistemology' (or OE) and cybernetic epistemology (CE). While it might be argued that Kant’s epistemology with its connection to, if not grounding in, Eurocentric philosophical anthropology is a paradigmatic instance of the former, it was previously argued that this move is problematic on at least three counts: Firstly, Bateson nowhere explores the connections between Kant, epistemology, race and information, nor does he explicitly identify Kant’s epistemology as an instance of OE; secondly, Kantian epistemology is often appealed to in formulating cybernetic conceptions of knowing (including that articulated by Bateson himself, at least with respect to its informational aspect), which means that identifying it as an instance of OE, as against CE, is questionable; thirdly, Bateson’s distinction between OE and CE is itself contestable. In addition, the absence of explicit reference to the 'Orient' in framing the opposition between OE and CE is significant in that it points to what might be regarded as an 'indifference' or marginalization. In this essay, and inspired by Chun's [5] "race and / as technology", I want to explore the Bateson-Kant – and thereby the information-race – connection further, but from a somewhat different perspective, viz. one in which 'race' and 'religion' are entangled2. Specifically, I want to consider the implications of what Almond [6] has referred to as Kant's Eurocentrically racialized marginalization of – or rather, his 'indifference' to – the (Islamic) Orient in his philosophical anthropology, and what this might mean for Bateson's conception of information. Extending the reflexive hermeneutic framework introduced in [3], I want to consider what it might mean to think about issues at the intersection of information and Orientalism, with the latter framed in terms of a race-religion entanglement; more precisely, I want to examine what it might mean to think about Orientalism from an information-theoretical perspective, and what it might mean to think about information in terms of Orientalism; in short, I want to engage with "Orientalism and / as information"

Prolegomenon to the Decolonization of Internet Governance

Does Internet governance need to be decolonized? If so, why? How can Internet governance be ‘colonial’ (thereby necessitating decolonization) if the colonial project is a thing of the past? And even if Internet governance is a colonial phenomenon, what might it mean to ‘decolonize’ Internet governance, and how should this be carried out

“White Crisis” and/as “Existential Risk”, or The Entangled Apocalypticism of Artificial Intelligence

In this article, I present a critique of Robert Geraci’s Apocalyptic AI discourse, drawing attention to certain shortcomings which become apparent when the analytical lens shifts from religion to the race-religion nexus. Building on earlier work, I explore the phenomenon of Existential Risk associated with Apocalyptic AI in relation to “White Crisis,” a modern racial phenomenon with premodern religious origins. Adopting a critical race theoretical and decolonial perspective, I argue that all three phenomena are entangled and they should be understood as a strategy, albeit perhaps merely rhetorical, for maintaining white hegemony under nonwhite contestation. I further suggest that this claim can be shown to be supported by the disclosure of continuity through change in the long durée entanglement of race and religion associated with the establishment, maintenance, expansion, and refinement of the modern/colonial world system if and when such phenomena are understood as iterative shifts in a programmatic trajectory of domination which might usefully be framed as “algorithmic racism.