Gender identity - performativity

 (This is straying way beyond my field of competence, but it is interesting and justified by the Information and Identity session in DTMD 2013)

First, performativity:

If you show someone a map and say ‘this is how people get from Point A to Point B,’ the statement is performative when it creates the behavior it describes. In this case, a path gets worn in the ground between Point A and Point B.

Thus, performative statements don’t reflect reality (as in the declarative statement ‘this is a pen’), but intervene in it. Performative language is an engine, not a camera.

A model becomes performative when its use increases its predictive capabilities.

—David Stark, Paris, 17.07.2009 Quoted by Brooke Harrington

So, gender performativity:

...I will draw from theatrical, anthropological, and philosophical discourses, but mainly phenomenology, to show that what is called gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo. [...]

Gender reality is performative which means, quite simply, that it is real only to the extent that it is performed.

Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” (1988)

FQXi essay competition on "It From Bit or Bit From It?"

I see FQXi (the Foundational Questions Institute) is running an essay competition on the theme: "It From Bit or Bit From It":

It From Bit or Bit From It?

The past century in fundamental physics has shown a steady progression away from thinking about physics, at its deepest level, as a description of material objects and their interactions, and towards physics as a description of the evolution of information about and in the physical world. Moreover, recent years have shown an explosion of interest at the nexus of physics and information, driven by the "information age" in which we live, and more importantly by developments in quantum information theory and computer science.

We must ask the question, though, is information truly fundamental or not? Can we realize John Wheeler's dream, or is it unattainable? We ask: "It From Bit or Bit From It?"

Possible topics or sub-questions include, but are not limited to:

What IS information? What is its relation to "Reality"?

How does nature (the universe and the things therein) "store" and "process" information?

How does understanding information help us understand physics, and vice-versa?

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I couldn't write a better introduction to the contest than FQXi Member George Musser, over at the site of our contest partner Scientific American. As George puts it, "Going to a physics conference these days is like landing in The Village of the old TV series The Prisoner, where all anyone talks about is information." Well, now is the time to break out and join us for the discussion here at FQXi.

You can find out more including official rules and entry information at this link. There, you'll also find links to our previous contest entries, including our previous contest Questioning the Foundations.

Entries are due June 28, 2013. Good luck and good writing.

Human knowledge and tricks with percentages

A bit of a self-indulgent post today.  (OK, even more self-indulgent than usual.)

Suppose your destination is 100 miles away and you've travelled 20 miles. One day you travel another 10 miles, so you have travelled half as much again: you've increased the distance you have travelled by 50%.  Or, in that day, you have gone from having covered 20% of your total distance to having travelled 30%, so you have got 10% closer to your destination.

On another journey your destination is 1000 miles away and you've travelled 20 miles. Again, one day you travel another 10 miles, so you have travelled half as much again: you've increased the distance you have travelled by 50%.  But in this case, in that day, you have gone from having covered 2% of your total distance to having travelled 3%, so you have got 1% closer to your destination.

Then, destination 1000,000 miles away, still increase the distance you've travelled by 50%, but only get 0.001% closer.

But what if your destination is infinitely far away?  Do you get any closer however far you travel? So are you really travelling at all?

Is that what human knowledge is like?  Certainly we know lots more about the universe than we did 1000 years ago, but are we any closer to understanding the universe?

Update: see later post

Programme and paper abstracts for DTMD2013

 

An interdisciplinary workshop on Information: Space, Time, and Identity

The Open University and the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK

8th-10th April 2013

The full programme of presenters and abstracts of all the talks for DTMD 2013 are now available for download from the workshop website.  Register online.

In outline:

Session 1: Information and Space (Mon 8 April, 10:30-13:00)

Chairs: Andrea Berardi and Derek Jones

• Keynote: Holger Schnädelbach, University of Nottingham, UK: Adaptive Architecture
• Ambjörn Naeve & Carl Smith, KTH, Sweden and London Metropolitan University: Spacification: How to design and construct spaces that can enhance artistic experiences
• Caitlin Bentley Royal Holloway University of London: Information as evidence: The quest for development aid results
• Claudia Jacques, University of Plymouth, UK: Space-Time Aesthetics in the Meta-Environment: A Cybersemiotics Analysis
• Derek Jones, The Open University, UK: Where is information?

Session 2: Information and Time (Mon 8 April, 14:00-17:30)

Chairs: Chris Bissell and Magnus Ramage

• Keynote: John Monk, The Open University, UK: What is time for?
• Gabriela Besler and Jolanta Szulc, University of Silesia, Poland: Time as a constitutive element of information expressed in signs 
• Jan Sliwa, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Bern, Switzerland: Trying to know everything – truth as a moving target 
• Robin Laney, The Open University, UK: Difference as Meaning in Musical Narratives
• David Chapman,The Open University, UK: Information is Provisional

Informal evening discussions (Monday evening)

Session 3: Information and Identity (Tues 9 April, 09:00-13:00)

Chairs: Mustafa Ali and Hugh Mackay

• Keynote: Liesbet van Zoonen, Loughborough University, UK and Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Identification, information and narrative 
• Michael Thompson, University of North Texas, USA The Antinomy of Identity: Personal
  Identity and Time in Modern Philosophy
• Robert Hunter, Northumbria University, UK How digital discourse has affected individuals ability to mould their identity and relationship to information online.
• Jan Sliwa, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Bern, Switzerland: Living in parallel worlds – two Polish nations
• Paul Adams, Alcatel-Lucent, UK: Identity Shift: Where Identity Meets Technology in the Networked-Community Age
• Karen Kear, Frances Chetwynd & Helen Jefferis, The Open University, UK: “To give a better understanding of who I am”: the role of personal profiles in online learning.
• Robin Smith, University Hospitals of Leicester,UK: Everything Must Go: Data Brokers and the Explosion of the Information Crime Economy’

Session 4: What is information? (Tues 9 April, 14:00-17:30)

Chairs: Magnus Ramage and David Chapman

• Keynote: Pedro C. Marijuán, Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud (I+CS), Zaragoza, Spain: On being informational: caught into the communication flows
• Barbara Osimani Università degli studi di Camerino UNICAM, Italy: Code or cause? Genetic information as influence
• João Alvaro Carvalho, Universidade do Minho, Portugal: Asking the right question: What is information? OR What is it that you are calling information?
• Marek Hetmański, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Poland: Informational aspects of metaphors
• Marcin J. Schroeder Akita International University, Akita, Japan Ontological Study of Information: Identity and State
• Robert B. Lisek, Institute for Research in Science and Art, Poland: Presence and future of information space

Informal evening activities (Tues 9 April, 18:00-19:30)

      Including a discussion of information and art through Second Life

Session 5: Synthesis and Art (Wed 10 April, 09:30-11:00)

Chair: Derek Jones

• Keynote: Carson Grubaugh Information Artist, New York, USA: The Art of Information

Session 6: Plenary and Panel (Wed 10 April, 11:30-13:00)

Chair: David Chapman

• Keynote: Luciano Floridi, University of Hertfordshire and St Cross College, University of Oxford, UK The Maker’s Information
• Panel Discussion exploring an interdisciplinary understanding of information, with the keynote speakers and delegates.

Clothes, identity and gender

Further to thoughts on Information and Gender Identity (ahead of Session 3 at DTMD 2013 next month), a friend pointed me to this article about the model Casey Legler

Model Casey Legler: is she the perfect man?

The first woman to be signed exclusively as a male model, ex-Olympian Casey Legler is not just a pretty face. She's smart, creative and says exciting things about the way we portray gender

[...] Legler is 6ft 2in, 35 years old, and the first woman to sign exclusively as a male model. She is muscular and cheery, with the awkward swagger of a rock star. Her voice is soft and earnest, and when she talks, she holds unblinking eye contact. In front of the camera, edges appear. Spikes. She juts her chin; she becomes a boy.

Fashion has always played with gender, from 18th century men in their wigs and make-up, to Patti Smith and David Bowie, through to the recent success of Andrej Peji'c, the male model who FHM named as the 98th "sexiest woman in the world". Maison Martin Margiela and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons have long manipulated gender codes with their designs, and this year JW Anderson's menswear collection featured halternecks and knee-length gowns. The most exciting designers today are the ones who cheat gender, who affect our ideas about what makes a man. And while much has been written about 21-year-old Peji´c (who models both menswear and womenswear), he enjoys, he says, a "level of mystery", and rarely rises to the debate. Which is why Casey Legler, who, at 35, sees modelling menswear as part of her work as an artist, is so refreshing. She talks. She has the vocabulary to describe what she's doing, why she's doing it and what impact that might have on the world outside fashion.

[...] This conversation is about gender, about reading a woman as a boy. "I am the person who has to introduce this. They want to shoot me because I have a narrative, and implicit in that is a conversation," she explains. "I'm not androgynous," she stresses, holding her drink with tattooed fingers. "There is no ambiguity with me." [...]

Eva Wiseman, The Observer, Sunday 3 March 2013

I wonder where our gender resides?  Not, it seems, the clothes we wear, not the body parts we have or our X-Y chromosomes, not our sexuality. I was at an "all-male" school for much of my childhood. I remember we referred to some boys by the female pronoun "she ...". At first this was certainly a form of teasing, the usual cruelty of children. But later and for some it seemed natural. We thought of them as (maybe relatively) feminine. Not as a criticism: it was just what they were.  I don't think it was exclusively those who were gay, nor were all who (later turned out to be) gay talked about in those terms, though there was an overlap.  It was more to do with behaviour. Not quite that they were camp.  And it wasn't about not being tough and into rugby.  (I was most definitely not tough nor into rugby, and I came in for my fair share of teasing because of it, but I was never addressed as feminine.)

It is peeling the onion again.  I don't think there is an 'essence' of gender that we'll find if we dig deep enough. I think gender is 'all of the above' and certainly some more, but no one of them can trump the others.

I also think our gender is provisional. But then I think all information is provisional, which is the subject of the paper I'm presenting at DTMD 2013.

Our symbolic culture

Humans today live in what we call a symbolic culture. All the objects around us have a symbolic dimension. The clothes we wear, for instance, send out signals about us that are unrelated to their practical function. We form symbolic relationships where no biological relationship exists, with a husband, sister-in-law, godchild, blood-brother, for example. Language, of course, is another key example, the relationship between the words and the objects and concepts to which they refer is completely arbitrary and that is the essence of a symbol.

Neanderthals created few symbolic artefacts. Before about 50,000 years ago there is very little evidence of any that stand up to scientific scrutiny.

All work and no play: Why Neanderthals were no Picasso - opinion - 27 February 2013 - New Scientist

Of course there is also a symbolic dimension even to the lives of animals. See previous posts about the peacock's tail, and if you argue that growing a tail isn't 'creating' an artefact, what about Bower Birds? And there has been recent research showing that Dolphins call each other by 'name'.

Perhaps the use of symbols is not a distinction between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, nor even between humans and animals, but characteristic of life. I wonder, could that be in there as the, one of the, defining features of a living organism?