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Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious Paperback – Illustrated, April 5, 2017
byN. Katherine Hayles(Author)
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N. Katherine Hayles is known for breaking new ground at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities. In Unthought, she once again bridges disciplines by revealing how we think without thinking—how we use cognitive processes that are inaccessible to consciousness yet necessary for it to function.
Marshalling fresh insights from neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive biology, and literature, Hayles expands our understanding of cognition and demonstrates that it involves more than consciousness alone. Cognition, as Hayles defines it, is applicable not only to nonconscious processes in humans but to all forms of life, including unicellular organisms and plants. Startlingly, she also shows that cognition operates in the sophisticated information-processing abilities of technical systems: when humans and cognitive technical systems interact, they form “cognitive assemblages”—as found in urban traffic control, drones, and the trading algorithms of finance capital, for instance—and these assemblages are transforming life on earth. The result is what Hayles calls a “planetary cognitive ecology,” which includes both human and technical actors and which poses urgent questions to humanists and social scientists alike.
At a time when scientific and technological advances are bringing far-reaching aspects of cognition into the public eye,Unthought reflects deeply on our contemporary situation and moves us toward a more sustainable and flourishing environment for all beings.
Marshalling fresh insights from neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive biology, and literature, Hayles expands our understanding of cognition and demonstrates that it involves more than consciousness alone. Cognition, as Hayles defines it, is applicable not only to nonconscious processes in humans but to all forms of life, including unicellular organisms and plants. Startlingly, she also shows that cognition operates in the sophisticated information-processing abilities of technical systems: when humans and cognitive technical systems interact, they form “cognitive assemblages”—as found in urban traffic control, drones, and the trading algorithms of finance capital, for instance—and these assemblages are transforming life on earth. The result is what Hayles calls a “planetary cognitive ecology,” which includes both human and technical actors and which poses urgent questions to humanists and social scientists alike.
At a time when scientific and technological advances are bringing far-reaching aspects of cognition into the public eye,Unthought reflects deeply on our contemporary situation and moves us toward a more sustainable and flourishing environment for all beings.
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
- Publication dateApril 5, 2017
- Dimensions8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
- ISBN-10022644788X
- ISBN-13978-0226447889
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Hayles draws from her vast knowledge of both the humanities and the sciences to create this unique book…and explores a broad range of interdisciplinary theories and research findings in a continuous, seamless fashion…Expansive thought is evident throughout this small volume, with endless topics for future exploration. This text is a suitable companion volume to the author’s other works, interdisciplinary collections, and consciousness studies collections…Highly recommended.” ―Choice
“Traditionally, we have associated cognition with consciousness and hence only with human beings.Unthoughtprovides evidence from neuroscience, literary studies, economics, urban planning, robotics, computer science, and other fields to demonstrate that this narrow view is not only restrictive but dangerous. Hayles shows that if we think of cognition as pattern recognition and the capacity to respond to environmental changes, then most living things and many technical devices are cognizers. This cutting-edge, one-of-a-kind book offers a model of how to mediate between science and philosophy in an intelligent and respectful way.” -- Laura Otis, author of Rethinking Thought: Inside the Minds of Creative Scientists and Artists
“No one has done more to integrate the two cultures than Katherine Hayles, and this volume is truly a signature achievement. Here she rethinks cognition, building an intricate theoretical assemblage that includes the new materialisms, neuroscience, and cognitive biology and opens up her recent analyses of ‘how we think’ to an entire planetary cognitive ecology that is as expansive as it is technically precise. It is also, importantly, deeply ethical, at a moment when the stakes for the humanities, and the world, are particularly high.Unthought marks a brilliant addition to Hayles’s astonishing corpus—and it is surely destined to become part of our conscious and critical thought.” -- Rita Raley, author of Tactical Media
“Hayles breaks with anthropocentric views of cognition with a framework that enmeshes biological and technical cognition. On offer here is a paradigm shift in how we think in relation to planetary cognitive ecologies, how we analyze the operations and ethical implications of human-technical assemblages, and how we imagine the role that the humanities can and should play in assessing these effects.” -- Tim Lenoir, coauthor of The Military-Entertainment Complex
"The book compellingly suggests that many domains of science and society can be better understood—and more effectively engaged—by attending to the distributed systems of cognition that are already right there but not yet fully in the line of sight...But more than just filling in what has been omitted, Hayles proposes a reorientation or re-cognition, a revitalized outlook on what has so far been unthought in these fields...As Hayles demonstrates in her vivid technical discussions and bold theoretical formulations, the conditions for this radically altered way of understanding are already here." ―Science Fiction Studies
"Unthought presents readers with a technically and theoretically rigorous take on what many new materialists refer to as distributed agency. . . . Readers familiar with Hayles’ work will recognize in Unthought a resumption of her interest in the significance of human or posthuman embodiment in the face of technological forces that seem to dematerialize subjectivity." ―Studia Neophilologica
"A remarkable, ambitious and far-reaching book...of the utmost importance for literary scholars interested in interdisciplinary thought." ―Modern Philology
“Traditionally, we have associated cognition with consciousness and hence only with human beings.Unthoughtprovides evidence from neuroscience, literary studies, economics, urban planning, robotics, computer science, and other fields to demonstrate that this narrow view is not only restrictive but dangerous. Hayles shows that if we think of cognition as pattern recognition and the capacity to respond to environmental changes, then most living things and many technical devices are cognizers. This cutting-edge, one-of-a-kind book offers a model of how to mediate between science and philosophy in an intelligent and respectful way.” -- Laura Otis, author of Rethinking Thought: Inside the Minds of Creative Scientists and Artists
“No one has done more to integrate the two cultures than Katherine Hayles, and this volume is truly a signature achievement. Here she rethinks cognition, building an intricate theoretical assemblage that includes the new materialisms, neuroscience, and cognitive biology and opens up her recent analyses of ‘how we think’ to an entire planetary cognitive ecology that is as expansive as it is technically precise. It is also, importantly, deeply ethical, at a moment when the stakes for the humanities, and the world, are particularly high.Unthought marks a brilliant addition to Hayles’s astonishing corpus—and it is surely destined to become part of our conscious and critical thought.” -- Rita Raley, author of Tactical Media
“Hayles breaks with anthropocentric views of cognition with a framework that enmeshes biological and technical cognition. On offer here is a paradigm shift in how we think in relation to planetary cognitive ecologies, how we analyze the operations and ethical implications of human-technical assemblages, and how we imagine the role that the humanities can and should play in assessing these effects.” -- Tim Lenoir, coauthor of The Military-Entertainment Complex
"The book compellingly suggests that many domains of science and society can be better understood—and more effectively engaged—by attending to the distributed systems of cognition that are already right there but not yet fully in the line of sight...But more than just filling in what has been omitted, Hayles proposes a reorientation or re-cognition, a revitalized outlook on what has so far been unthought in these fields...As Hayles demonstrates in her vivid technical discussions and bold theoretical formulations, the conditions for this radically altered way of understanding are already here." ―Science Fiction Studies
"Unthought presents readers with a technically and theoretically rigorous take on what many new materialists refer to as distributed agency. . . . Readers familiar with Hayles’ work will recognize in Unthought a resumption of her interest in the significance of human or posthuman embodiment in the face of technological forces that seem to dematerialize subjectivity." ―Studia Neophilologica
"A remarkable, ambitious and far-reaching book...of the utmost importance for literary scholars interested in interdisciplinary thought." ―Modern Philology
About the Author
N. Katherine Hayles is distinguished research professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles and James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of literature at Duke University. She is the author of many books, most recently Postprint: Books and Becoming Computational.
Product details
- Publisher : University of Chicago Press; Illustrated edition (April 5, 2017)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 022644788X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0226447889
- Item Weight : 11.9 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #904,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,344 inConsciousness & Thought Philosophy
- #2,117 inCognitive Psychology (Books)
- #3,383 inMedical General Psychology
- Customer Reviews:
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4.8 out of 5 stars
24 global ratings
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2022Chapter 6 about finance was my favorite. This is a good book on philosophy of cognition, more generally. Anyone interested in psychology, sociology, economics, politics and emergent social complexity will find this an enjoyable read. Hayles prose and word economy are second to none.
5/5 - Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2017In her in-depth study of nonconscious cognition, Duke University literature professor N. Katherine Hayles explores the what’s so of neuroscience, out beyond the reaches of our experience. Or rather, deeply in-bedded in our experience. All that is going on behind the scenes is nothing short of miraculous!
As a literary critic Hayles masterfully weaves the fields of literature, neuroscience, cognitive biology, ecology, ethics, feminism, and new materialism. Through her broad view she illustrates how emerging theories in the sciences serve to alter our notions of the mind, thinking / acting, and cognition. Hayles describes in detail how the cognitive nonconscious selectively forwards information to consciousness. She also deeply probes the socio-cultural and ecological ramifications of this hierarchy of information gathering along with the notion of an expanded field of relatedness across species and genus. Processes carried out by plants, animals, weather events, and natural disasters all take place in nonconscious cognition. In her attempt at differentiating nonconscious / conscious cognition, Hayles jests that the difference between humans and avalanches is that humans get to choose their paths, the towns they destroy.
Hayles writing style, while dense and at times challenging for this amateur scientist, is rich with association. I found her work pleasingly inclusive of women in the sciences, as well as all-encompassing of other forms of life. Hayles unpacks the science behind her inquiry along with much needed examples from everyday life experience.
Having practiced in the field of psychology for many years it is intriguing to see the many ways in which conscious and unconscious processes are juxtaposed with nonconscious events. The linearity of unconscious thoughts and experiences emerging into consciousness gets interrupted by all of the behind-the-scenes activity going on in nonconscious cognition.
As Hayles writes,
…nonconscious processing, while distinct from consciousness, is in constant communication with it and supports consciousness precisely by limiting the amount of information with which consciousness must deal, so that consciousness, with its slower speed and more limited processing power, is not overwhelmed.” (2017, p. 59, italics in original).
Outlining the various properties inherent in nonconscious and conscious cognition Hayles makes the leap into the world of computer algorithm technology. She correlates the speed at which nonconscious cognition occurs with that of computational media and technological models. Nonconscious cognition is present at birth, is fast, and is geared toward processing. While conscious cognition occurs in a post-natal developmental stage, is slow, and has the capability of meaning-making and abstract reasoning.
Hayles continues,
The point is not that humans are not capable of reason (obviously an easy fallacy to refute), but that reason is supported by and in fact requires nonconscious cognition in order to be free to work on the kinds of problems it is well designed to solve. (2017, pp. 59 - 60)
In her exploration of new materialism Hayles looks deeply into the fields of ontology, evolution, survival, force, and transformation. She returns over and over again to the ethical issues inherent cultural transition and technological innovation. The microscopic to macroscopic view that Hayles possesses in her writing is both pleasing and inspiring. Her book calls for a second or third read in order to fully take in the depth and multidimensionality.
Lisa Foley - Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2018In Unthought, Dr. Hayles delivers an excellent exploration into how cognitive processes function within the human mind as well as how recent literature interprets nonconscious actions. The book focuses on cognitive nonconscious rather than a more common awareness of the cognitive conscious. The simple interpretation would be suggesting all actions require thought, and no thought occurs without consciousness, however, cognitive nonconscious is one’s brain creating answers without awareness. Two sections are explored thoroughly in the text; first, the cost to move from a nonconscious to conscious state for mindful actions, and second, the how using technical creations augments human interactions with nonconscious behavior. Each section is then compared against recent literary works to demonstrate how other authors have interpreted the challenges of living in a digital society.
During interpretation and discussion about Unthought, I found myself repeatedly using noncognitive rather than nonconscious, as my own nonconscious mistake since, as Hayles demonstrates, these are very different aspects. The nonconscious research available through philosophy and neuroscience which has grown greatly in recent years and is thoroughly reviewed. Books like Blink by Malcom Gladwell or Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman examine in detail studies on how humans deal with events below their conscious perception. Studies in these areas, as Hayles demonstrates through an extensive literature review, require the mind to function but not always to provide detailed direction. These influences are then explained by Dr. Hayles through the science fiction works, Remainder by Tom McCarthy and Blindsight by Peter Watts
In the second half, Hayles conducts the same through study on how people use technical devices to substitute for nonconscious practices. Where one can observe a great deal of data, and perhaps come to a conclusion, these technical devices help to accelerate those decisions. The decisions are not independent of human thought, instead, Hayles illuminates how these devices merely become an acceleration of nonconscious practices through drones and high-frequency stock trading. Also significant are the references to Norbert Weiner’s analysis of cybernetics. These concepts are then matched against Colson Whitehead’s The Instuitionist which creates a fictional story around the early 1900s examining race relations, philosophical cognition, and elevator maintenance.
Overall, although Dr. Hayles book was not entirely what I expected, I found it immensely interesting. My personal habits run more to reading cyberspace strategy and examining cognition from a manipulative rather than an interpretive goal. Demonstrating how nonconscious actions could be depicted from a fictional lens was interesting and informative. I’ve actually added the works analyzed here to my reading list as I’m curious to see how I interpret them through the added frame of Unthought. I greatly enjoyed reading this text and would recommend it for those looking for a new windows for exploring human interactions with the machine.
Top reviews from other countries
- k lewisReviewed in Canada on July 16, 2018
5.0 out of 5 starsAnother great book from Hayles
Katherine Hayles provides a truly insightful analysis into the domains of cognition and thought. I’m not certain I agree with her argument regarding computer technologies engaging in cognition of their own but It is certainly a well crafted and interesting argument. All around the book is an excellent read for those with an interest in thinking about cognition and what all it might mean.
