Understanding the Present as Cosmo-technological Transformation: Towards A General Ecology of Thought and Technodiversity Michael Baker Comparative and International Education Society Presentation April 29, 2021 (revised 6/2/21) Introductory Overview I am developing a critique of the computational turn in relation to the present technological condition and the ontological turn in the knowledge disciplines and education. Education and research on technology in education are caught up in this worldwide digital movement towards technological acceleration being promoted by transhumanist imaginaries of computational singularity. Our current focus on on-line learning and the computerization of education overall in the coronavirus pandemic from 2020 are illustrations of the ongoing acceleration of the technological innovation driving technological development and education world-wide. Bill Williamson and Anna Hogan's recent work on the technological transformation of education (Gulson & Webb, 2017; Hogan & Thompson, 2021; Klein, 2020; Williamson & Hogan, 2021), illustrates my claim that a new metaphysical epoch is emerging that is not only digitalizing education, but also what it means to be human. Today, the human future is thrown into question by our technological capacities. The convergence of new technologies (for example, biotechnology, robotics, informatics, and nanotechnology) in projects of controlling life has radically reconfigured our sense of the human condition, both through technological capacities already at our disposal and through emergent imaginations of what human futures are possible, desirable, and good. We have begun to achieve unprecedented capacities to manipulate not only our external environment but the internal environments of our bodies as well. In light of these emerging and anticipated capacities, questions about human progress, redemption, or demise are increasingly asked in relation to imagined technological futures (TiroshSamuelson & Hurlbut, 2016, p. 5).
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