Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies

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Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies 
M. A. Peters, P. Jandrić, & S. Hayes (Editors)

According to Freeman Dyson (2007), ‘the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology’. In our pandemic age, even those who succumbed to the capitalist fallacy of ‘bigger, faster, better’ computers, transportation, and economy, will now agree that 20th century focus to machinery needs to be succeeded by a focus to better understanding of living systems and their interactions with technology at all scales – from viruses, through human beings, to Earth’s ecosystem. 

This change of direction cannot be made by simple relocation of focus and/or funding from one discipline to another. In our age of the Anthropocene, (human and planetary) biology cannot be thought of without technology. Today’s curious bioinformational mix of ‘blurred and messy relationships between physics and biology, old and new media, humanism and posthumanism, knowledge capitalism and bio-informational capitalism’ (Jandrić et al. 2018: 896) defines the postdigital condition and creates new knowledge ecologies. 

Postdigital knowledge ecologies are mutually constitutive with bioinformational capitalism. Coming ‘after mercantile, industrial, and knowledge capitalisms’ (Peters 2012: 105), bioinformational capitalism is ‘based on a self-organizing and self-replicating code that harnesses both the results of the information and new biology revolutions and brings them together in a powerful alliance’ (Peters 2012: 105). In general public, bioinformational capitalism develops new media ecologies burdened by post-truth, fake news, infodemics, etc. In scholarly research, new knowledge ecologies are built upon emerging forms of scientific communication, big data deluge, opacity of algorithmic operations, etc. Many of these developments can be been approached using the concept of viral modernity, which ‘applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education and emerging knowledge (journal) systems’ (Peters, Jandrić and McLaren 2020; Peters and Besley 2020). 

Based on theories of bioinformationalism (Peters 2012), viral modernity (Peters and Besley 2020), the postdigital condition (Jandrić et al. 2018; Jandrić 2020), and others, this book asks: Which new knowledge ecologies are now emerging; which philosophies and research approaches do they require? Possible themes: 

  • Philosophy / social theory of bioinformation
  • Bioinformational science
  • Biopolitics and bioinformational capitalism
  • Philosophy of bio-digital becoming
  • Environment / Anthropocene 
  • Social epistemology
  • Big Data / Viral Data / Artificial Intelligence
  • Viral Modernity / Covid-19 
  • Postdigital theory
  • Social epidemiology and viral systems
  • Post-truth: lies, bullshit, fake news etc.
  • Infodemics / conspiracy theories
  • Bioinformation and education
  • Openness, open knowledge, knowledge socialism 

Editors
Michael Peters, Beijing Normal University, China
Petar Jandrić, Zagreb University of Applied Sciences, Croatia and University of Wolverhampton, UK
Sarah Hayes, University of Wolverhampton, UK

Please submit your papers to [email protected]

Dyson, F. (2007). Our biotech future. The New York Review, 19 July. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/07/19/our-biotech-future/. Accessed 22 October 2020. 

Jandrić, P. (2020). The Day After Covid-19. Postdigital Science and Education, 3(2), 531–537. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00195-4

Jandrić, P., Knox, J., Besley, T., Ryberg, T., Suoranta, J., & Hayes, S. (2018). Postdigital Science and Education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(10), 893-899. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2018.1454000.  

Peters, M. A. (2012). Bio-informational capitalism. Thesis Eleven, 110(1), 98–111. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0725513612444562

Peters, M. A., & Besley, T. (2020). Pandemic Education and Viral Politics. London: Routledge. 

Peters, M. A., Besley, T., Jandrić, P., & Zhu, X. (Eds.). (2020). Knowledge Socialism. The Rise of Peer Production: Collegiality, Collaboration, and Collective Intelligence. Singapore: Springer. Peters, M., Jandrić, P., & McLaren, P. (2020). Viral modernity? Epidemics, infodemics, and the ‘bioinformational’ paradigm. Educational Philosophy and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1744226.


Photo by National Cancer Institute 

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