THE REGIME OF NETWORK-COMUNICATION AND THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION

Abstract

The major debate within A.I. theory at the end of the 20th century, on whether or not developing a computer with self-consciousness was feasible, was interjected by the philosopher John Searle, who aimed to abolish the idea entirely. His attack, making the case from a typical Cartesian perspective that aims to maintain a separated realm of subjective intentionality, falls however short, as he himself already accepts the underlying communicational paradigm of the information age, which renders obsolete his separation between an intentional subject and his outer linguistic expressions. This debate itself reveals the paradigm shift within 20th century communication theory, in which the gradual destabilization of unitary human subjectivity gives way to the network paradigm of communication, in which the intentional transfer of information is replaced by algorithmic rules of network relations, and the power-structure of social relations. In the following paper I will attempt to trace this shift and its potential breaking points towards a new paradigm, using Deleuzian theory to analyse the current state of communication.