Mythos Algorithmus

The author analyzes patterns of knowledge, perception, and action that lead us to believe that, in light of new hybrid phenomena such as intelligent machines or artificial life, the boundaries between nature and technology are increasingly blurring and what it means to be human is being called into question. These patterns, according to the central thesis, are products of a historically specific cultural logic, the logic of the algorithm. This logic makes humans explicable through the lens of the technical and thus serves as a model for a universal interpretation of the world, as the myth of the algorithm. Thinking, feeling, and acting, as well as body, self, and life, become visible solely in light of its interpretive power. Only in the case of bodily sensations of sexual desire, pain, or ecstasy does the question arise whether it is possible to escape the logic of the algorithm.