The technology of forgetting

//

It was interesting to listen to Bernard Stiegler’s talk, he has been inspiring to some parts of my works, acting as bridges through which I can jump in between different concepts. Technics for Stiegler constitutes the tertiary memory, which he takes from Husserl. This third memory, which is different from the notion of german [memory of species] and soma[memory of individual] by Weissman, it is what Stiegler calls epiphylogenetic memory which is constituted by techne.

Technics also constitute the “already there”, a term used by Heidegger in Sein und Zeit, but I think the “already there” for Heidegger is broader, since the already there is not only technical, it is the setting of Dasein’s falleness. But there is side of technics, plays a major part in the “already there”.

Stiegler also explores from Plato, the myth of the titans, Prometheus and Epimetheus, the forgetting of Epimetheus (his fault in forgetting distributing skills to the mortals) which set the default of origin of human. In this sense, the default of human beings, is their necessity to produce technics.

The Platonic idea of hypomnesis plays an important part in Stiegler’s theory, the necessity to remember the truth which ever lost in the reincarnations, as Plato shows in Socrates’s dialogue with Meno, is also the necessity of production of differance, as a process of deferral, of temporality, as well as death in Heidegger’s thoughts.

Then we may witness the necessity of forgetting in our age, the over population of the mnenotechnology, which not able leaves traces of our being, but also narrow down the possibility of deferral, which is to say make differences.

I remember last month, when I was in a W3C workshop on the future of social networking, Julien Pye from Vodafone, compares hyperthymesia with social networking, and points out the necessity of forgetting. If we follow the logic of Stiegler, especially his take on Plato’s pharmakon nature of technicity, it is easy to claim that hypomnesis is itself a pharmakon, which is both able to cure and poison. But I think we need to further differentiate the idea of pharmakon in this case. Firstly technics as the tertiary memory, refers to the trace of a past which belongs to me but I never live; secondly the content/products of technics, which constitute a past which belong to me and I still have to live with. So technics, in this sense, is not about remembering, but there is a necessity of forgetting, in the sense, is that I demand such a forgetting.

This necessity of forgetting, is at the same time, ethical, also therapeutic. Ethical in the sense that forgetting is an important part of social, to be social you have to forget things. It is also therapeutic, since firstly it is also a necessity of remembering, secondly, active forgetting as Nietzsche says can be something positive. I am taking this therapeutic idea from Foucault’s technology of the self.

I think, technics, as the third memory has to be rethought in this context, in which, we also demand forgetting.

Latest from Blog

“Technological Pluralism” in WIRED (vol. 50, Sep. 2023) (JP)

『WIRED』US版の創刊から30周年という節目のタイミングとなる今号では、「30年後の未来」の様相を空想する。ちなみに、30年後は2050年代──つまりはミッドセンチュリーとなる。“前回”のミッドセンチュリーはパックスアメリカーナ(米国の覇権による平和)を背景に欧米的な価値観や未来像が前景化した時代だったとすれば、“次”のミッドセンチュリーに人類は、多様な文化や社会や技術、さらにはロボットやAIエージェントを含むマルチスピーシーズが織りなす多元的な未来へとたどり着くことができるだろうか? 空想の泰斗・SF作家たちとともに「Next Mid-Century」を総力特集する。 テッド・チャン、劉 慈欣、池澤春菜、マリアーナ・エンリケス、倉田タカシ、N・K・ジェミシン、高山羽根子、ウォレ・タラビ、藤井太洋、ユク・ホイ、齋藤精一、ベッキー・チェンバーズ、長谷川 愛、三宅陽一郎、山田胡瓜、ププル・ビシュト、川崎和也、津久井五月、逢坂冬馬、安堂ホセ、池上英子、市川沙央、市川春子、伊藤亜和、稲見昌彦、円城 塔、岡 瑞起、川和田恵真、斉藤賢爾、齋藤帆奈、Jen.two、Jini、柴田勝家、アンソニー・ダン、陳 楸帆、エレナ・トゥタッチコワ、野﨑まど、伴名 練、比嘉夏子、Peterparker69、ジョアンナ・ファン、フラン・ラブシャーニュ、松田桂一、宮内悠介、村上由鶴、和田夏実、吉上 亮、水野祐、なみちえ、川田十夢など。 More info

『宇宙技芸の多様性』(by Daisuke Harashima) in The Adventurers of Media Theory (University of Tokyo Press, 2023)

著者 伊藤 守 編 発売日 2023/09/01 ISBN 978-4-13-050209-2 判型・ページ数: A5 ・ 400ページ はじめに(伊藤 守) Ⅰ メディア論の目覚め ガブリエル・タルド:モナド論からメディア論へ(伊藤 守) ヴァルター・ベンヤミン:媒質から複製技術メディアへ(竹峰義和) テオドール・W・アドルノ:同一化と抵抗の弁証法(竹峰義和)