The present PhD-thesis seeks new definitions of human subjectivity in an age of technoscience and a networked, globalized, Information Society. The perspective presented relates to Philosophy of Science, which includes the Human, the Natural, the Social and the Life Sciences. The project is directed at addressing, and aims to participate in, the further development of Philosophy of Science, or rather, the philosophy of knowing, which leaves a perspective broader than that of science. Methodologically, I combine readings of technoetic artworks, which I approach from a hermeneutical-semiotic perspective, with transdisciplinary research into existing theory concerning the human subject. These readings form my case studies. I keep a particular focus on holistic biophysics (Mae Wan Ho, James Oschman, Marko Bischof). Furthermore, Søren Brier's cybersemiotic theory of communication, cognition and consciousness, which combines a cybernetic-autopoietic and a Peircean semiotic perspective, plays a central role in the project. The project has three parts. Part one contextualizes the study within philosophy of science. It discusses relevant epistemologies, and places the case studies in an art categorical context. It further discusses the philosophical problems involved in writing an academic thesis in the form of a linear, argumentative, critical style, and how it affects the process of meaning making in a way that has consequences to my research. The second part consists of four case studies, each under an overall theme, which applies to the question of human subjectivity. Here I build the concept Extended Sentience, and the concept of an Ideal User. The Ideal User functions as a conceptual frame, which allows me to gradually add more elements to a theory of an altered human subject and knower. The third part presents new ontologies under three basic themes: Time and Relativity, The Life Cycles of Metaphors, and Logos Philosophy and Virtual Grids. These ontologies strongly affect ways of interpretation made in part one and two. Part Three allows more space to my subjective thought processes, which will take precedence over the literature applied. Thus, I, as a post-objective subject observer, will become more transparent. Finally, I will seek an overall conclusion to the project, which should clarify areas where it is evident that the human subject must be reconsidered at a pre-scientific level. It is my thesis that the foundation for human knowledge generation is changing drastically today, and that it has become crucial to reconsider a common understanding of what constitutes the human knower.

Dans ce mémoire, nous explorons les possibilités d’une herméneutique algorithmique littéraire en faisant d’abord des parallèles entre la lecture humaine et la modélisation textuelle numérique. À partir des caractéristiques de ces deux formes de rapports au texte littéraire, nous différencions les modèles littéraires nés de la cognition et de la computation, en plus de rester critique des formes représentatives ainsi générées. Nous utilisons ensuite les cadres théoriques de la sémiotique et de la cybersémiotique pour placer l’interprétation humaine et computationnelle sur un même continuum d’évolution biotechnologique. Ainsi, nous envisageons la possibilité de sens littéraire numérique à partir de méthodes d’exploration de données appliquées aux modèles littéraires algorithmiques. Finalement, nous considérons les potentielles conséquences, limites et avantages d’une pratique de l’herméneutique algorithmique, et la forme qu’une telle pratique pourrait prendre. / In this master thesis, we explore the possibilities of digital criticism, first by creating parallels between human reading and computational text modelling. From the characteristics of both these approaches to literary work, we differentiate literary models born of cognition and computation, and stay critical of these representative forms. We then use literary semiotics and cybersemiotics as theoretical frameworks to set human and computer interpretations as two steps on the same biotechnological evolutionary ladder. Thus, we consider the possibility of digital literary meaning produced with advanced data mining tools applied to algorithmically generated literary models. Finally, we contemplate what consequences, limits and advantages such a digital hermeneutic practice would have and offer, and the shapes it may or may not take.

This study contributes to the understanding of cultural forms, inspired by Cassirer’s notion of a general function manifesting in the many particular expressions of human culture. The special case of cybersemiotics (a newly established scientific discipline) is studied as a social system to make sense of how it operates as a viable cultural form. The study uses citation network analysis to map out the boundaries and communications of the cybersemiotic discipline, and then delves into its contents to qualitatively investigate selected parts of the network structure. A framework for studying and comparing cultural forms is developed.