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CHAPTER 8-9 PRACTICE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS GUIDE: POSTHUMANISM
AND ARTIFICIAL LIFE: PRACTICE QUESTIONS AND ANALYSIS
Arizona State University
Summer 2021
Chapter 8 Questions and Answers: Critiques of Anthropocentrism, Posthuman
Subjectivity, Nonhuman Agency, Biopolitics, Ethics, And Materialism
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. A core argument in posthumanist critique is that the traditional concept of "the Human" is:
A. Biologically immutable and universal.
B. A stable category that should be preserved.
C. A historically constructed and exclusive figure.
D. Synonymous with the capacity for spoken language.
Answer: C
Explanation: Posthumanism contends that the Human is a normative construct produced
through discourses that exclude non-human entities and certain human groups.
2. The philosophical stance that places human experience and values at the center of all ethical and
epistemological consideration is termed:
A. Androcentrism.
B. Anthropocentrism.
C. Eurocentrism.
D. Speciesism.
Answer: B
Explanation: Anthropocentrism is the human-centered worldview that posthumanism seeks to
decenter and challenge.
3. Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto" uses the cyborg figure primarily to:
A. Advocate for enhanced human-machine integration in industry.
B. Warn against the loss of human purity through technology.
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C. Blur the boundaries between nature/culture and organism/machine for feminist politics.
D. Provide a blueprint for literal cyborg engineering.
Answer: C
Explanation: Haraway employs the cyborg as an ironic political myth to challenge essentialist
categories and imagine new, non-Oedipal forms of kinship and agency.
4. Rosi Braidotti's concept of "zoe" refers to:
A. A nostalgic return to classical humanism.
B. The disembodied, rational consciousness of the subject.
C. The impersonal, generative force of life shared by all living beings.
D. A specifically human form of biological existence.
Answer: C
Explanation: For Braidotti, zoe signifies the non-anthropocentric, vital life force that connects
humans, animals, and other forms of matter.
5. According to Katherine Hayles, the central assumption of "liberal humanism" that is disrupted by
the posthuman is:
A. The importance of community.
B. The autonomy and self-possession of the conscious self.
C. The value of artistic expression.
D. The necessity of economic systems.
Answer: B
Explanation: Hayles argues that the liberal humanist subject is founded on the illusion of a self-
contained, autonomous consciousness, an illusion challenged by posthuman distributed
cognition.
6. In critical posthumanism, the term "anthropogenic" often describes:
A. Events or phenomena originating from human activity.
B. A genre of speculative fiction.
C. Theories that prioritize animal consciousness.
D. The study of ancient human cultures.
Answer: A
Explanation: "Anthropogenic" refers to effects, like climate change, caused by human actions,
highlighting human agency's planetary-scale impact.
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7. Cary Wolfe's framework of "posthumanism" is best described as:
A. A celebration of transhumanist technological enhancement.
B. An ethical and philosophical project that precedes and enables animal studies.
C. The final stage of human cultural evolution.
D. A rejection of all philosophical systems.
Answer: B
Explanation: Wolfe positions posthumanism as a fundamental critique of the philosophical
underpinnings of speciesism, which must be addressed before meaningful animal studies can
proceed.
8. The theoretical approach that examines how power operates through the management and control
of life itself is called:
A. Semiotics.
B. Biopolitics.
C. Deconstruction.
D. Phenomenology.
Answer: B
Explanation: Biopolitics, following Foucault, analyzes how modern states regulate populations
through discourses and practices centered on life processes.
9. Agential realism, as developed by Karen Barad, fundamentally challenges the distinction
between:
A. Good and evil.
B. Past and future.
C. Knowing and being.
D. Fiction and nonfiction.
Answer: C
Explanation: Barad's ontology argues that practices of knowing are direct material engagements
that shape the very phenomena they study; subject and object are entangled.
10. In posthumanist theory, "companion species" refers to:
A. Only domesticated pets like dogs and cats.
B. Species that are biologically symbiotic.
C. Partners in significant ontological and ethical relationships that co-constitute each other.
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D. Species selected for human genetic enhancement projects.
Answer: C
Explanation: The concept, elaborated by Haraway, describes mutually constitutive
relationships, like those between humans and dogs, where both partners are shaped through their
history together.
11. Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) argues that:
A. All objects are ultimately reducible to their relations with human perception.
B. Objects withdraw from full access, possessing a reality independent of their relations.
C. Only living objects have true ontological status.
D. Digital objects are the most significant contemporary entities.
Answer: B
Explanation: OOO posits that objects have an essential reality that is never fully exhausted by
their relations or human knowledge of them.
12. The "nonhuman turn" in the humanities is characterized by:
A. A shift away from analyzing human culture.
B. A rejection of all theoretical frameworks.
C. An increased focus on the agency and role of non-human entities.
D. A return to religious explanations of the world.
Answer: C
Explanation: This scholarly movement decenters the human to examine the active participation
of things, animals, ecosystems, and technologies in shaping worlds.
13. "Biosemiotics" is the study of:
A. Biological warfare.
B. The biochemical basis of life.
C. Signs and communication in living systems.
D. The history of biology as a science.
Answer: C
Explanation: Biosemiotics explores how all living organisms, not just humans, engage in
processes of signification and communication.
14. A key criticism posthumanism levels against Cartesian dualism is that it:
A. Overvalues emotion.
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B. Radically separates mind from body and human from world.
C. Is insufficiently mathematical.
D. Denies the existence of the soul.
Answer: B
Explanation: Posthumanism rejects the mind/body and human/world splits, advocating for
embodied, embedded, and relational models of existence.
15. The concept of "cognitive assemblage," per N. Katherine Hayles, describes:
A. A group of people thinking together.
B. A collection of philosophical texts.
C. Distributed cognitive systems that integrate human and technical actors.
D. The neurological structure of the brain.
Answer: C
Explanation: Cognitive assemblages are dynamic systems where cognition emerges from the
interactions between humans and technical media, neither located solely in the human.
16. In ecological posthumanism, "interconnectedness" implies:
A. A vague spiritual connection between all things.
B. Concrete, material entanglements where agencies intra-act and co-constitute each other.
C. That all distinctions between entities are illusory.
D. A network model applicable only to digital technology.
Answer: B
Explanation: This interconnectedness is material and agential, following thinkers like Barad,
emphasizing the mutual constitution of entities through their relationships.
17. "Speculative realism" is a philosophical movement that:
A. Speculates about realistic fiction.
B. Argues reality is independent of human thought and access.
C. Focuses solely on economic and political realism.
D. Is synonymous with scientific realism.
Answer: B
Explanation: Speculative realism challenges "correlationism" (the idea that we only access a
correlation between thought and being), positing a reality outside human consciousness.
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18. Posthumanist ethics often shifts focus from individual rights to:
A. Corporate responsibility.
B. Relationality and responsibility within complex networks.
C. Strict legal codification.
D. Divine commandment.
Answer: B
Explanation: Ethics becomes a question of responsive responsibility to the myriad human and
non-human others with whom one is entangled.
19. The "Anthropocene" is a proposed geological epoch marked by:
A. The rise of mammals.
B. Significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems.
C. The digital revolution.
D. The end of the Ice Age.
Answer: B
Explanation: The Anthropocene concept signifies that human activity has become the dominant
geological force on the planet.
20. According to Bruno Latour's Actor-Network Theory, a "nonhuman actor":
A. Has no real effect on social outcomes.
B. Is merely a tool for human intention.
C. Can be an agent that modifies a state of affairs within a network.
D. Must possess consciousness to have agency.
Answer: C
Explanation: Latour grants agency to nonhumans (e.g., a speed bump, a microbe) as actants that
participate in shaping action within networks.
21. "Metaphysics of presence" is a Derridean term critiqued in posthumanism for privileging:
A. Gifts and presents.
B. Immediate, self-identical being over absence, difference, and relation.
C. Physical presence over virtuality.
D. The present moment over history.
Answer: B
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Explanation: This critique targets philosophies that ground truth in immediate presence, a move
that posthumanism sees as reinforcing humanist subjectivity.
22. "Vibrant matter," a concept from Jane Bennett, suggests that:
A. Only organic matter is active.
B. Inanimate material possesses its own trajectory, force, and quasi-agency.
C. Matter is spiritually alive.
D. Materialism is an outdated philosophical stance.
Answer: B
Explanation: Bennett's vital materialism attributes a certain agency or "thing-power" to
nonhuman bodies, from metals to trash.
23. In critical disability studies, the "social model" of disability posits that disability is caused by:
A. Individual biological impairment alone.
B. Societal barriers and attitudes, not just bodily difference.
C. A lack of personal willpower.
D. Genetic destiny.
Answer: B
Explanation: This model aligns with posthumanism by showing how the "human" norm is
constructed through environments that exclude certain bodily forms.
24. "Transcorporality," as used in material ecocriticism, refers to:
A. Corporate mergers.
B. The movement of substances across the boundaries of bodies and environments.
C. Out-of-body experiences.
D. A type of virtual reality.
Answer: B
Explanation: It describes the interpenetration of bodies and places, such as toxins in ecosystems
becoming part of human physiology.
25. The "posthuman" subject, in contrast to the "transhuman," is primarily concerned with:
A. Technological enhancement to surpass human limitations.
B. A philosophical redefinition of subjectivity beyond humanist ideals.
C. The next step in human biological evolution.
D. Creating artificial general intelligence.
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Answer: B
Explanation: While transhumanism focuses on improving the human, posthumanism is a critical
project that questions the very foundations of humanist subjectivity.
26. "Ethico-onto-epistem-ology" is a Baradian term emphasizing that:
A. Ethics, ontology, and epistemology are separate fields.
B. Knowing, being, and ethics are inextricably intertwined.
C. Ethics is more important than knowledge.
D. Only epistemology provides reliable knowledge.
Answer: B
Explanation: Barad argues that our practices of knowing (epistemology) are material
engagements that shape what exists (ontology) and carry ethical consequences.
27. Giorgio Agamben's concept of "bare life" (zoe) refers to life that:
A. Is lived to its fullest potential.
B. Is reduced to its biological functions and excluded from political recognition.
C. Exists in a state of nature without culture.
D. Is specific to non-human animals.
Answer: B
Explanation: "Bare life" is life that can be killed without being sacrificed, captured within
sovereign power as the excluded foundation of politics.
28. "The ends of man" in the course title signals a concern with:
A. The goal or purpose of humanity.
B. The death or obsolescence of the humanist subject.
C. Human anatomy.
D. The final chapter of human history.
Answer: B
Explanation: It invokes both the teleological aims and the potential termination of the figure of
"Man" as the center of philosophical thought.
29. "Situated knowledges," per Haraway, advocate for:
A. A god-trick of seeing everything from nowhere.
B. Objective, disembodied knowledge.
C. Knowledge that acknowledges its partial perspective and embodied location.
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D. Knowledge based solely on quantitative data.
Answer: C
Explanation: This feminist epistemology argues for accountable, embodied objectivity in
contrast to claims of a neutral, universal view.
30. "Intra-action," a key term for Barad, differs from "interaction" because it:
A. Describes actions within a single entity.
B. Assumes pre-existing, separate entities that then interact.
C. Refers to intentional communication.
D. Signifies that distinct agencies emerge through their entangled encounter.
Answer: D
Explanation: Intra-action denotes the mutual constitution of entangled agencies; entities do not
pre-exist their relations but emerge through them.
31. "The Capitalocene" is a proposed alternative to "Anthropocene" that locates the source of
planetary change in:
A. Human nature.
B. Capitalist modes of production and extraction.
C. Overpopulation.
D. Industrial technology alone.
Answer: B
Explanation: This term argues that capitalism, not a generic "humanity," is the driving historical
force behind ecological crisis.
32. A "posthumanist reading" of a novel would likely focus on:
A. The author's biographical intent.
B. How the text destabilizes human/non-human boundaries or critiques anthropocentrism.
C. Its adherence to traditional narrative form.
D. Its representation of universal human emotions.
Answer: B
Explanation: Such a reading would analyze the text's engagement with non-human agencies,
hybrid identities, or critiques of human exceptionalism.
33. "Becoming-animal," a concept from Deleuze and Guattari, refers to:
A. Literally transforming into an animal.
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B. An affective, relational process that opens the subject to nonhuman intensities.
C. A regression to a primitive state.
D. A moral failing.
Answer: B
Explanation: It is a destratifying process of forming alliances and entering into compositions
that alter one's capacities, not an imitation.
34. "The microbiome" is significant to posthumanist thought because it demonstrates:
A. The sterile isolation of the human body.
B. That the human body is a sovereign ecosystem.
C. The human as a multispecies holobiont, composed of countless microbial others.
D. The danger of all bacteria.
Answer: C
Explanation: The microbiome illustrates the material reality of the human as a collaborative,
multi-species assemblage.
35. "Hyperobjects," as defined by Timothy Morton, are entities like climate change that are:
A. Extremely small and fast.
B. Viscous, nonlocal, massively distributed in time and space, and beyond total human
comprehension.
C. Purely conceptual.
D. Synonymous with digital networks.
Answer: B
Explanation: Hyperobjects fundamentally alter our sense of scale, time, and existence, forcing a
posthuman perspective.
36. "The corporeal turn" in theory emphasizes:
A. The dismissal of the body's importance.
B. The centrality of the material, lived, and performed body to understanding subjectivity.
C. A focus on corporate economics.
D. The body as a purely textual construct.
Answer: B
Explanation: This turn insists on embodiment against Cartesian and purely linguistic models of
the subject, key for posthumanism.
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37. "The ecological thought," per Morton, involves realizing:
A. That we must go back to nature.
B. The interconnectedness and strange intimacy of all beings, including "dark ecology."
C. A precise mathematical model of ecosystems.
D. That humans are separate from nature.
Answer: B
Explanation: It is the difficult realization of interconnectedness, which includes acknowledging
our entanglement with unpleasant and "uncanny" ecological others.
38. "Technogenesis," a concept from Hayles, means that:
A. Technology has a genetic code.
B. Humans and technics have co-evolved together throughout history.
C. Technology is born from pure science.
D. Tools are extensions of innate human biology.
Answer: B
Explanation: Technogenesis argues that human biological and cognitive evolution is inseparable
from the development and use of tools and media.
39. "The posthuman condition" is characterized by:
A. The absolute end of humanity.
B. The recognition that humans are no longer the sole meaning-producing agents on the planet.
C. A state of perfect technological control.
D. Universal peace and understanding.
Answer: B
Explanation: It signifies an ontological and ethical shift where non-human forces
(technological, ecological, biological) are acknowledged as key actors.
40. "The ethics of vulnerability" in posthumanism argues that:
A. Vulnerability is a weakness to be eliminated.
B. Shared ontological vulnerability and dependence form the basis for ethical responsibility.
C. Only the vulnerable have ethical standing.
D. Ethics should protect invulnerability.
Answer: B
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Explanation: This ethics, seen in Braidotti and others, starts from the condition of mutual
exposure and interdependence as a source of obligation.
Multiple-Response / Select-All-That-Apply =
41. Which of the following concepts are central to Karen Barad's theory of agential realism? (Select
all that apply.)
A. Intra-action.
B. Phenomena.
C. The ontological separation of observer and observed.
D. Agential cuts.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: Barad's framework is built on intra-action (mutual constitution), phenomena (the
primary ontological unit), and agential cuts (temporary resolutions within phenomena). She
rejects the separation in C.
42. A posthumanist critique of human exceptionalism would challenge which of the following
assumptions? (Select all that apply.)
A. Only humans possess language.
B. Only humans are moral agents.
C. Humans are embedded in ecological networks.
D. Human consciousness is unique and discontinuous from other forms of awareness.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: Posthumanism challenges these exceptionalist claims. Option C is a premise that
posthumanism accepts and emphasizes.
43. According to Rosi Braidotti, which elements are key to her affirmative posthuman ethics? (Select
all that apply.)
A. Nostalgia for humanism.
B. Endurance through suffering.
C. The productive power of zoe.
D. Relational subjectivity.
Answer: C, D
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Explanation: Braidotti's ethics is affirmative, based on the generative force of life (zoe) and
relationality. She rejects nostalgia (A) and does not center on suffering (B).
44. Which theoretical movements are often included under the umbrella of the "nonhuman turn"?
(Select all that apply.)
A. Actor-Network Theory.
B. Object-Oriented Ontology.
C. New Criticism.
D. Speculative Realism.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: ANT, OOO, and Speculative Realism all decenter the human. New Criticism (C)
is a human-centric literary method.
45. N. Katherine Hayles identifies which characteristics as central to the "posthuman" view? (Select
all that apply.)
A. Consciousness is the seat of human identity.
B. Informational pattern is prioritized over material instantiation.
C. The body is the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate.
D. Human beings are autonomous agents.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Hayles cites informational privileging (B) and the prosthetic body (C) as key
posthuman tenets, while explicitly arguing against A and D.
46. In Donna Haraway's work, which figures are used to challenge stable boundaries? (Select all that
apply.)
A. The Cyborg.
B. Companion Species.
C. The Goddess.
D. The rational humanist subject.
Answer: A, B
Explanation: Haraway uses the cyborg and companion species as boundary-breakers. The
Goddess (C) is an essentialist figure she critiques, and the rational subject (D) is her target.
47. Which of the following would be considered "biopolitical" management, in a Foucauldian sense?
(Select all that apply.)
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A. Public health vaccination campaigns.
B. Census data collection on birth rates.
C. A novel about personal feelings.
D. Regulations on waste disposal and pollution.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: These are all techniques for managing the health, reproduction, and environment
of a population. A novel (C) typically falls outside this specific administrative frame.
48. The concept of the "Anthropocene" forces a rethinking of which traditional categories? (Select
all that apply.)
A. The scale of human agency.
B. The separation of natural history and human history.
C. The stability of literary genres.
D. Deep time and geological agency.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: The Anthropocene merges human and natural history (B), vastly expands the scale
of human agency (A), and involves humans in geological time (D). It does not directly address
literary genres (C).
49. Which statements align with a posthumanist understanding of agency? (Select all that apply.)
A. Agency is a property possessed only by intentional human actors.
B. Agency can be distributed across human and non-human actants in a network.
C. An apparatus can have agentic force in shaping outcomes.
D. Agency requires free will in the philosophical sense.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Posthumanism often views agency as distributed (B) or as an effect of
assemblages/apparatuses (C), rejecting the exclusively human, intentional model of A and D.
50. A material ecocritical approach would be interested in which of the following? (Select all that
apply.)
A. The narrative representation of landscapes.
B. The flow of chemicals and toxins across bodies and texts.
C. The agency of matter in storytelling.
D. The author's pure imaginative genius.
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Answer: A, B, C
Explanation: Material ecocriticism connects discourse (A) with material flows (B) and
nonhuman agency (C). It tends to decenter the romantic author (D).
51. For Timothy Morton, which traits define "hyperobjects"? (Select all that apply.)
A. They are local and immediate.
B. They are viscous.
C. They are nonlocal.
D. They are easily perceived in their totality.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Hyperobjects are viscous (they stick to us) and nonlocal (massively distributed).
They are not local/immediate (A) and cannot be perceived totally (D).
52. Which critiques are commonly leveled against transhumanism from a critical posthumanist
perspective? (Select all that apply.)
A. It remains anthropocentric by seeking to perfect the human.
B. It ignores issues of social inequality and access to enhancement.
C. It engages seriously with the agency of non-human life.
D. It shares humanism's faith in rationality and technological progress.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: Critical posthumanism argues transhumanism is anthropocentric (A), often elitist
(B), and retains humanist progress narratives (D). It generally does not credit transhumanism
with C.
53. In object-oriented ontology, which claims are made about objects? (Select all that apply.)
A. Objects are fully defined by their relations.
B. Objects always withdraw from other objects.
C. Objects are only real insofar as they are perceived.
D. Objects have a reality independent of their relations.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: OOO holds that objects withdraw (B) and have a relation-independent reality (D).
It denies that objects are fully defined by relations (A) or dependent on perception (C).
54. Which of the following are key themes in posthumanist feminist theory? (Select all that apply.)
A. Embodied and situated knowledge.
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B. The critique of universal, disembodied reason.
C. The reinforcement of the nature/culture binary.
D. Relational and networked models of selfhood.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: Posthumanist feminism emphasizes embodied knowledge (A), critiques
disembodied reason (B), and advocates relational selves (D). It seeks to blur, not reinforce, the
nature/culture binary (C).
55. The idea of "naturecultures," coined by Haraway, signifies that: (Select all that apply.)
A. Nature and culture are separate domains.
B. Nature and culture are co-constructed and inseparable.
C. All scientific facts are pure discoveries of nature.
D. Practices of knowledge-making are always cultural, and "nature" is a participant.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: "Naturecultures" denotes their inseparability (B) and the idea that knowledge
practices are cultural engagements with an active natural world (D).
56. According to Cary Wolfe, why is "posthumanism" necessary for "animal studies"? (Select all
that apply.)
A. Because animals are becoming posthuman through technology.
B. Because the philosophical framework of humanism is inherently speciesist.
C. Because it allows us to see animals as they truly are, without human concepts.
D. Because it challenges the ontological and ethical boundaries erected by humanism.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: Wolfe argues humanism's foundations are speciesist (B), so a posthumanist
critique of those boundaries (D) is a prerequisite for ethical animal studies.
57. Which phenomena exemplify the concept of "transcorporality"? (Select all that apply.)
A. A river flowing within its banks.
B. Industrial pollutants found in human breast milk.
C. The genetic modification of crops.
D. A person having a private thought.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Transcorporality involves the movement of substances/effects across body
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boundaries (B) and the deliberate reconfiguration of biological boundaries (C). A and D describe
contained entities.
58. A posthumanist reading of a technology like a smartphone would consider: (Select all that
apply.)
A. Its role in extending human cognition and memory.
B. The mineral and labor networks required for its production.
C. Only its user interface design.
D. Its agency in reshaping social patterns and attention.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: A posthumanist view would consider cognitive extension (A), material
entanglements (B), and non-human agency (D). A focus solely on interface (C) would be
reductionist.
59. "Bare life" (Agamben) can be exemplified by which of the following figures? (Select all that
apply.)
A. The citizen with full legal rights.
B. The refugee in a detention camp.
C. The comatose patient on life support.
D. The concentration camp inmate.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: These figures are reduced to biological existence under sovereign power, stripped
of political-legal personhood. A citizen (A) has political form, and a patient (C) exists in a
medical, not purely political, zone.
60. Jane Bennett's "vital materialism" would attribute a kind of agency to: (Select all that apply.)
A. A swarm of insects.
B. A plastic bag caught in the wind.
C. A computer algorithm.
D. A stone.
Answer: A, B, C, D
Explanation: Bennett's theory is expansive, attributing "thing-power" or vibrant materiality to
all these nonhuman bodies and assemblages.
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61. The "corporeal turn" is a reaction against which theoretical tendencies? (Select all that apply.)
A. Extreme social constructionism that treats the body as a text.
B. Cartesian mind-body dualism.
C. The biological determinism of race science.
D. An emphasis on lived, material embodiment.
Answer: A, B
Explanation: The corporeal turn reacts against textualizing the body (A) and Cartesian dualism
(B). It is not a reaction against critiques of determinism (C) or against embodiment (D), which it
champions.
62. Which of the following statements would a posthumanist theorist be likely to reject? (Select all
that apply.)
A. "Human consciousness is the pinnacle of evolution."
B. "We are all knots in a field of relations with human and non-human others."
C. "Ethics concerns only interpersonal human relationships."
D. "Technology is a neutral tool for human use."
Answer: A, C, D
Explanation: Posthumanism would reject anthropocentric evolution (A), narrowly human ethics
(C), and the neutrality/instrumental view of tech (D). Statement B is a core posthumanist idea.
63. "Speculative realism" is defined by its rejection of: (Select all that apply.)
A. Speculation about the future.
B. Correlationism.
C. The independent existence of the world.
D. Realist fiction.
Answer: B
Explanation: Its defining move is rejecting correlationism (the idea that we only know the
correlation between thought and being). It does not reject speculation (A), affirms an
independent world (C), and is unrelated to literary genre (D).
64. In the context of the "Capitalocene," which processes are emphasized as drivers of ecological
change? (Select all that apply.)
A. The human species' innate destructive tendency.
B. Colonialism and resource extraction.
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C. Capital accumulation and growth imperatives.
D. Universal patterns of population growth.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: The Capitalocene thesis specifically points to historical systems of colonialism (B)
and capitalist economics (C), not to a generic human nature (A) or population dynamics (D).
65. For Braidotti, the "posthuman subject" is characterized by: (Select all that apply.)
A. A unitary, rational core.
B. Nomadic becoming.
C. Affirmative engagement with zoe.
D. Nostalgia for a lost unity.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Her subject is nomadic (B) and affirmatively embraces the life force (C). It rejects
a unitary core (A) and nostalgia (D).
66. "Becoming-animal" (Deleuze & Guattari) involves: (Select all that apply.)
A. Literal metamorphosis.
B. Forming an affective alliance with an animal's capacities.
C. Imitating an animal's appearance.
D. A process that destabilizes the organized human subject.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: It is an affective, relational process of alliance (B) that destratifies the subject (D),
not a literal (A) or imitative (C) change.
67. Which concepts highlight the distributed nature of cognition in posthumanist theory? (Select all
that apply.)
A. The Cartesian cogito.
B. Cognitive assemblage (Hayles).
C. Extended mind hypothesis.
D. The isolated brain-in-a-vat.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Cognitive assemblage (B) and extended mind (C) posit cognition as distributed
across brain, body, and environment. The cogito (A) and brain-in-a-vat (D) are models of
isolated cognition.
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68. A "dark ecology" (Morton) acknowledges: (Select all that apply.)
A. Only the beautiful, pristine parts of nature.
B. Our intimate entanglement with rotting logs, spiders, and pollution.
C. That ecological interconnectedness is often uncanny and disturbing.
D. A simple, romanticized oneness with nature.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Dark ecology focuses on the strange, "ugly," and disturbing entanglements (B, C),
rejecting romanticized (D) or exclusively pristine (A) views.
69. The "microbiome" challenges the idea of the individual by showing that the human body is:
(Select all that apply.)
A. A sterile fortress.
B. A holobiont or multi-species ecosystem.
C. Genetically pure.
D. Composed of more microbial cells than human cells.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: The microbiome reveals the body as a multi-species collective (B) with a vast
microbial majority (D), contradicting ideas of sterility (A) and purity (C).
70. "Technogenesis" (Hayles) suggests that: (Select all that apply.)
A. Technology develops autonomously.
B. Human evolution is profoundly shaped by tool use.
C. Biology and technology have a co-evolutionary history.
D. Technology is external to human nature.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Technogenesis posits a co-evolutionary loop (C) where tools shape human biology
and cognition (B). It denies technological autonomy (A) and a strict externality (D).
71. An "ethics of vulnerability" is based on the premise that: (Select all that apply.)
A. Vulnerability is a flaw.
B. We are all fundamentally interdependent and exposed.
C. Ethics should aim to create invulnerable subjects.
D. Our shared fragility grounds ethical responsibility.
Answer: B, D
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Explanation: This ethics starts from interdependence and exposure (B) as the basis for
responsibility (D). It revalues vulnerability against views of it as a flaw (A) or something to
eliminate (C).
72. Posthumanist approaches to literature might analyze: (Select all that apply.)
A. The depiction of non-human narrators or perspectives.
B. How landscapes act as agents in the plot.
C. Solely the author's biographical context.
D. Texts that hybridize human, animal, and machine.
Answer: A, B, D
Explanation: Posthumanist literary analysis focuses on non-human agencies (A, B) and
boundary breakdowns (D). While context may be considered, a sole focus on author biography
(C) is not its primary method.
73. The notion that "the personal is planetary" in ecological posthumanism means: (Select all that
apply.)
A. Individual actions have no larger consequence.
B. Bodily health is linked to global environmental health.
C. Personal identity is shaped by global material flows.
D. We must ignore local concerns.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: It signifies the material connection between the intimate scale of the body/self (B,
C) and the planetary scale, asserting profound consequence, not insignificance (A). It does not
ignore the local (D).
74. "Intra-action" (Barad) implies that: (Select all that apply.)
A. Agencies pre-exist their relations.
B. Distinct agencies emerge through relational encounters.
C. An apparatus enacts agential cuts that produce "objects" and "subjects."
D. Interactions occur between independently existing entities.
Answer: B, C
Explanation: Intra-action means agencies co-constitute each other through encounter (B), via
the cutting practices of an apparatus (C). It is opposed to the ideas in A and D.
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75. Which of the following are examples of "biopower" in action? (Select all that apply.)
A. A mandatory national fitness program.
B. A law guaranteeing free speech.
C. Policies incentivizing certain family sizes.
D. The study of metaphysics.
Answer: A, C
Explanation: Biopower acts upon the biological life of the population through health (A) and
reproductive (C) policies. Free speech (B) is a juridical right, and metaphysics (D) is abstract
philosophy.
76. The "Chthulucene" (Haraway) is proposed as an alternative to the Anthropocene that
emphasizes: (Select all that apply.)
A. A singular, top-down creator god.
B. Ongoing, multispecies, tentacular practices of living and dying together.
C. The era of the human as sole agent.
D. Making kin in troubled times.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: The Chthulucene centers on multispecies, entangled practices (B) and the work of
building kinship (D), rejecting a single god (A) or human exclusivity (C).
77. A key difference between "posthumanism" and "transhumanism" is that posthumanism: (Select
all that apply.)
A. Is primarily a philosophical critique.
B. Seeks to enhance human biology technologically.
C. Often questions the very category of "the human."
D. Is focused on achieving immortality.
Answer: A, C
Explanation: Posthumanism is a philosophical critique (A) that questions the human category
(C). Transhumanism is focused on enhancement (B) and often immortality (D).
78. In a "cognitive assemblage" (Hayles), where is cognition located?
A. Exclusively in the human brain.
B. In the dynamic interactions between human and technical actors.
C. In the software code of the computer.
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D. It is an emergent property of the entire system.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: Cognition is in the interactions (B) and emerges from the system as a whole (D). It
is not exclusively in the brain (A) or the software (C).
79. "Zoe" (Braidotti) is contrasted with "bios" in that zoe refers to: (Select all that apply.)
A. The politically qualified life of the citizen.
B. The impersonal, generative force of all life.
C. Life that can be killed but not sacrificed.
D. The vital, non-anthropocentric power of being.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: Zoe is impersonal, generative life force (B, D). Bios is political life (A), and
Agamben's "bare life" is zoe as killable but not sacrificable (C), a related but distinct usage.
80. The "posthuman condition" involves recognizing that: (Select all that apply.)
A. Humans are the only actors that matter.
B. Non-human forces (e.g., climate, algorithms, viruses) actively shape our world.
C. We must return to a pre-technological state.
D. Human agency is embedded in and contingent upon complex networks.
Answer: B, D
Explanation: The condition involves acknowledging non-human actors (B) and embedded
human agency (D), not human exclusivity (A) or a return to the past (C).
True/False
81. Statement: Posthumanism argues that the concept of "the Human" is a universal, transhistorical
truth.
Answer: False.
Explanation: Posthumanism posits that "the Human" is a historically specific and culturally
constructed normative ideal.
82. Prompt: Define "anthropocentrism" in one sentence.
Answer: The worldview that positions human beings as the central and most significant entities
in the universe, the primary source of value and meaning.
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83. Statement: Donna Haraway's "cyborg" is a literal blueprint for human-machine fusion in
medical engineering.
Answer: False.
Explanation: The cyborg is an ironic political myth and theoretical tool for challenging
boundaries, not a literal engineering goal.
84. Prompt: What does "zoe" signify in Rosi Braidotti's posthuman philosophy?
Answer: It signifies the impersonal, generative, and non-anthropocentric force of life common to
all living beings.
85. Statement: N. Katherine Hayles believes the posthuman view prioritizes material embodiment
over informational pattern.
Answer: False.
Explanation: Hayles notes that a problematic version of the posthuman prioritizes informational
pattern over material instantiation, though she critiques this.
86. Prompt: What is the primary focus of "biopolitics" as a theoretical concept?
Answer: The exercise of power over life itself, through the administration and regulation of
populations and biological processes.
87. Statement: Karen Barad's "agential realism" maintains a strict separation between the knowing
subject and the observed object.
Answer: False.
Explanation: Agential realism argues they are entangled through "intra-action"; the observer is
part of the phenomenon.
88. Prompt: What does OOO (Object-Oriented Ontology) mean by an object's "withdrawal"?
Answer: It means objects possess a real essence that is never fully exhausted or translated into
their relations or perceptions.
89. Statement: The "nonhuman turn" seeks to eliminate the study of human culture from the
humanities.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It seeks to decenter the human, not eliminate it, by including non-human entities
as serious objects of study alongside humans.
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90. Prompt: What is the "Anthropocene"?
Answer: A proposed geological epoch in which human activity is the dominant influence on
climate and the environment.
91. Statement: In Actor-Network Theory, only humans can be considered "actors" or "actants."
Answer: False.
Explanation: ANT grants actant status to non-human entities (e.g., tools, documents, microbes)
that modify a state of affairs.
92. Prompt: What does "metaphysics of presence" refer to in posthuman critiques?
Answer: The philosophical privileging of immediate, self-identical being, which underpins
humanist notions of the sovereign subject.
93. Statement: Jane Bennett's "vital materialism" argues that only living organisms possess agency.
Answer: False.
Explanation: Bennett attributes a degree of agency or "thing-power" to a wide range of
nonhuman matter, including inanimate objects.
94. Prompt: What is the "social model" of disability?
Answer: A model that locates disability not in individual bodily impairment but in societal
barriers and exclusionary designs.
95. Statement: "Transcorporality" refers to the experience of leaving one's body during meditation.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It refers to the material interpenetration of bodies and environments, like toxins
crossing from ecosystems into organisms.
96. Prompt: What is the main philosophical concern of "critical posthumanism" as opposed to
"transhumanism"?
Answer: Critical posthumanism seeks to philosophically deconstruct and move beyond humanist
subjectivity, while transhumanism seeks to technologically enhance it.
97. Statement: Barad's term "ethico-onto-epistem-ology" treats ethics, ontology, and epistemology
as separate domains.
Answer: False.
Explanation: The term signifies their fundamental inseparability; how we know (epistemology)
shapes what is (ontology) and entails ethical consequences.
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98. Prompt: What is "bare life" (zoe) in Giorgio Agamben's theory?
Answer: Biological life reduced to its minimal form, excluded from political community and
subject to sovereign power without legal protection.
99. Statement: The phrase "the ends of man" refers solely to the apocalyptic destruction of
humanity.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It plays on the dual meaning of "ends" as both purposes/goals and potential
terminations, referring to the crisis of the humanist subject.
100. Prompt: What does Haraway mean by "situated knowledges"?
Answer: Knowledge that acknowledges its partial perspective, rooted in specific embodied and
historical locations, as opposed to a claim of a universal "view from nowhere."
101. Statement: "Intra-action" and "interaction" are synonymous terms in posthumanist
theory.
Answer: False.
Explanation: "Interaction" assumes pre-existing independent entities. "Intra-action" posits that
entities emerge through their entangled relations.
102. Prompt: What does the term "Capitalocene" emphasize as the root cause of ecological
crisis?
Answer: The historical systems of capitalism, colonialism, and endless growth, rather than a
generic "humanity."
103. Statement: A posthumanist literary reading would primarily seek to uncover the author's
intended meaning.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It would focus more on how the text engages with non-human agencies, hybridity,
and critiques of anthropocentrism.
104. Prompt: What is the process of "becoming-animal" according to Deleuze and Guattari?
Answer: An affective, relational process of forming an alliance that opens the subject to
nonhuman intensities and destabilizes fixed identity.
105. Statement: The human microbiome supports the idea of the human as a genetically self-
contained individual.
Answer: False.
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Explanation: The microbiome demonstrates the human is a multispecies holobiont, composed of
trillions of microbial others essential to its function.
106. Prompt: Name one characteristic of a "hyperobject" as defined by Timothy Morton.
Answer: Viscous, nonlocal, temporally monstrous, or phasing. (Any one suffices).
107. Statement: The "corporeal turn" in theory emphasizes the body as a purely linguistic or
discursive construct.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It emphasizes the material, lived, and experiential reality of embodiment against
purely discursive models.
108. Prompt: What is "dark ecology"?
Answer: An ecological perspective that acknowledges the uncanny, disturbing, and often
unpleasant nature of our interconnectedness with all beings.
109. Statement: "Technogenesis" posits that human biology evolved first, and technology
was developed later as an external aid.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It posits a co-evolutionary process where human biology and technics have shaped
each other reciprocally throughout deep time.
110. Prompt: What is the "posthuman condition"?
Answer: The historical and philosophical condition in which humans are no longer considered
the sole or central agents in the world.
111. Statement: An "ethics of vulnerability" seeks to create perfectly invulnerable
autonomous subjects.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It takes shared vulnerability and interdependence as the starting point for ethical
responsibility and care.
112. Prompt: What is a "cognitive assemblage" (Hayles)?
Answer: A distributed cognitive system comprising human and technical actors, where cognition
emerges from their interactions.
113. Statement: "Naturecultures" describes the idea that nature and culture are entirely
separate realms.
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Answer: False.
Explanation: It describes their fundamental inseparability and co-constitution.
114. Prompt: Why does Cary Wolfe argue posthumanism is a prerequisite for animal studies?
Answer: Because the philosophical framework of humanism is inherently speciesist; its
boundaries must be critiqued before ethical consideration of animals is possible.
115. Statement: "Vibrant matter" (Bennett) is a term for specially engineered smart materials.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It is a philosophical concept attributing vitality and quasi-agency to ordinary,
nonhuman matter.
116. Prompt: What is the primary target of "speculative realism"?
Answer: Correlationism (the philosophical stance that we only ever access a correlation between
thinking and being).
117. Statement: In the context of the Capitalocene, overpopulation is identified as the primary
root cause of climate change.
Answer: False.
Explanation: The Capitalocene thesis identifies capitalist modes of production and extraction,
not population size per se, as the root cause.
118. Prompt: What does "nomadic becoming" refer to in Braidotti's work?
Answer: A non-unitary, processual model of subjectivity that is constantly transforming through
its relational encounters.
119. Statement: The "extended mind hypothesis" supports the Cartesian idea of the mind as a
self-contained, inner theater.
Answer: False.
Explanation: It argues that the mind extends into the environment through tools and symbols,
challenging the inner/outer boundary.
120. Prompt: What is the central project of the "Chthulucene" (Haraway)?
Answer: To make kin and practice tentacular, multispecies living and dying well on a damaged
planet.
Application/Scenario-Based Questions
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121. A government proposes a "smart forest" where every tree has a sensor to monitor health,
and AI directs drones to plant, water, and cull trees to maximize carbon sequestration for human
climate goals. A posthumanist critic would most likely argue this project:
A. Perfectly aligns with posthuman ethics by giving voice to trees.
B. Reinscribes anthropocentrism by treating the forest as a managed resource for human ends.
C. Fails because AI cannot understand ecology.
D. Should avoid all technology to be truly natural.
Answer: B
Explanation: The project's framing instrumentalizes the forest as a carbon sink for human
benefit, failing to recognize the intrinsic value and agency of the ecological assemblage.
122. A novel is narrated from the alternating perspectives of a human child, a service dog, and
a household AI assistant. A posthumanist literary scholar would be most interested in analyzing:
A. Which narrator provides the most objectively true account.
B. How the narrative structure challenges human-centered point of view and explores distributed
subjectivity.
C. The author's biography to explain the use of animals.
D. The technical accuracy of the AI's programming details.
Answer: B
Explanation: The multi-species narration decenters the human and explores subjectivity across
different forms of being, a core posthumanist concern.
123. A new social media algorithm is designed to maximize user engagement. It successfully
does so by amplifying content that triggers outrage and anxiety, fundamentally altering public
discourse. A posthumanist analysis would emphasize:
A. The algorithm is a neutral tool reflecting human desires.
B. The distributed agency within the human-algorithm cognitive assemblage, where the non-
human actor reshapes human social patterns.
C. This is solely the fault of the programmers' unethical intentions.
D. The solution is to delete all social media.
Answer: B
Explanation: This analysis highlights the active, agential role of the non-human algorithm
within a system that co-produces new behaviors and realities.
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124. In response to a zoonotic pandemic, a state mandates universal digital health passports
linked to real-time biometric data. A biopolitical critique would frame this primarily as:
A. A necessary public health measure with no downside.
B. An example of sovereign power managing biological life at the population level, with
implications for inclusion/exclusion.
C. A violation of purely individual property rights.
D. An inevitable outcome of human evolution.
Answer: B
Explanation: This is a classic biopolitical intervention: administering the health of the
population through technology, creating new categories of legitimate/illegitimate biological
existence.
125. An artist creates sculptures from plastic ocean waste, forming shapes that resemble
marine animals killed by pollution. A material ecocritical reading would focus on:
A. The artist's personal statement alone.
B. How the material itself (the plastic waste) carries stories of consumption, disposal, and harm,
intra-acting with the artistic form to create meaning.
C. The formal aesthetic qualities of the sculptures in isolation.
D. The price the sculptures could fetch at auction.
Answer: B
Explanation: Material ecocriticism analyzes the narratives inherent in matter itself and its
entanglement with cultural expression.
126. A philosopher argues that a mountain exists as a real object regardless of whether any
human or creature perceives it, and that even if we study its geology, its full "mountain-ness"
withdraws from our access. This philosopher is advocating for:
A. Phenomenology.
B. Speculative Realism / Object-Oriented Ontology.
C. Social Constructionism.
D. Anthropocentrism.
Answer: B
Explanation: The argument for a reality independent of perception and the withdrawal of
objects are hallmarks of Speculative Realism and OOO.
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127. A company develops "emotional AI" to care for the elderly, capable of recognizing
sadness and offering comforting words. An ethics informed by posthumanist vulnerability would
be most concerned with:
A. Whether the AI is truly conscious.
B. How this reconfigures care relations, potentially addressing isolation but also outsourcing
human responsibility and intimacy to a system.
C. The patent ownership of the software.
D. Training the elderly to use new technology.
Answer: B
Explanation: This ethics examines the new relational networks formed, questioning what care
means and what responsibilities are enacted when vulnerability is met with simulated response.
128. A scientist states, "We must edit the human germline to eliminate genetic diseases and
enhance intelligence, ensuring humanity's evolutionary future." A critical posthumanist would
counter that this view:
A. Is a logical scientific imperative.
B. Remains anthropocentric and transhumanist, seeking to perfect a normative "human" rather
than challenging the category itself.
C. Successfully achieves a posthuman perspective.
D. Is not technological enough.
Answer: B
Explanation: Critical posthumanism would identify this as a continuation of humanist
perfectibility and control projects, not a critique of human exceptionalism.
129. After a hurricane, a community rebuilds by incorporating traditional local knowledge,
designing buildings that work with floodplains, and legally granting "rights of nature" to the
local river. This approach aligns most closely with:
A. Anthropocentric resilience engineering.
B. Posthumanist practices of building naturecultures and acknowledging non-human agency.
C. A strict preservationist "leave nature alone" ethos.
D. Colonial land management.
Answer: B
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Explanation: This integrates cultural and ecological knowledge, co-shaping the community with
the environment and recognizing the river's agency, reflecting a natureculture.
130. A theorist studying the 19th-century telegraph argues that this technology didn't just
speed up communication but fundamentally reconfigured concepts of space, time, and empire,
creating new cognitive and social realities. This argument exemplifies the concept of:
A. Technological determinism.
B. Technogenesis.
C. Media neutrality.
D. The digital divide.
Answer: B
Explanation: Technogenesis is the co-evolutionary shaping of human cognition/society and
technology, precisely described here.
131. In a debate about animal rights, someone argues, "We must extend our circle of ethical
concern to include great apes because they are so similar to us in intelligence and emotion." A
posthumanist critic would find this argument problematic because it:
A. Goes too far in including animals.
B. Still relies on an anthropocentric standard (similarity to humans) to grant ethical value.
C. Is scientifically inaccurate.
D. Should include all animals, not just apes.
Answer: B
Explanation: Posthumanist animal studies challenges the need to justify ethical consideration
through human-like traits, which reinforces human superiority.
132. A writer describes a future where humans, after merging with AI, leave a "dead" Earth to
explore the stars. A posthumanist critique would likely label this narrative as:
A. A true posthuman vision.
B. A transhumanist escape fantasy that abandons responsibility for earthly entanglements.
C. An accurate prediction.
D. A cautionary tale about AI.
Answer: B
Explanation: This "escape" narrative ignores the embedded, planetary condition and
responsibility emphasized by thinkers like Haraway and Morton.
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133. When analyzing a disease outbreak, an Actor-Network Theorist would be sure to include
in their account:
A. Only the actions of doctors and politicians.
B. The virus, airport travel networks, diagnostic tests, vaccine formulas, and public health
advisories as actants in the network.
C. Just the economic impacts.
D. The subjective experiences of patients, to the exclusion of scientific data.
Answer: B
Explanation: ANT traces the network of associations, including key non-human actants like
viruses, technologies, and infrastructures.
134. A policy is proposed to combat an invasive plant species by releasing a genetically
engineered beetle to eat it. A posthumanist ethical evaluation would prioritize considering:
A. The cost-effectiveness of the project.
B. The unpredictable intra-actions within the ecosystem, the agencies of the plant, beetle, and
affected soils, and the potential for new, unintended assemblages.
C. Only the immediate benefit of removing the weed.
D. The aesthetic improvement of the landscape.
Answer: B
Explanation: It would emphasize the complex, agential entanglements and the impossibility of
fully predicting or controlling an ecological intervention.
135. A character in a film discovers their memories were implanted and their body heavily
augmented, leading them to question, "What am I?" This plot directly engages with which
posthumanist theme?
A. The stability of humanist autobiography and the embodied self.
B. The inevitability of technological progress.
C. The importance of national identity.
D. The conflict between good and evil.
Answer: A
Explanation: The plot destabilizes the core humanist notions of authentic memory, biological
integrity, and a coherent, self-knowing subject.
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136. A museum exhibit on climate change lets visitors touch ice cores from melting glaciers
and smell scent pods of pre-industrial air. A posthumanist analysis would praise this for:
A. Offering purely factual data.
B. Creating an immersive, multi-sensory, intra-active encounter that makes the hyperobject of
climate change palpable on a bodily scale.
C. Being a profitable tourist attraction.
D. Avoiding any emotional response.
Answer: B
Explanation: It uses material, sensory engagement to intra-act with visitors, making a vast,
abstract phenomenon (a hyperobject) personally and corporeally felt.
137. In a discussion about AI art, one person says, "The AI is just a tool; the real creativity
comes from the human prompting it." A posthumanist would likely:
A. Agree completely.
B. Argue that creativity emerges from the intra-active assemblage of human, AI model, training
data, and interface, not from either alone.
C. Argue the AI is the sole creative agent.
D. Dismiss the discussion as irrelevant.
Answer: B
Explanation: This reflects a posthumanist view of distributed agency and creativity within a
cognitive assemblage.
138. A company markets "ethical meat" grown from animal cells in a lab, claiming it ends
animal suffering. A posthumanist analysis informed by Haraway might question:
A. The scientific feasibility.
B. Whether this truly addresses our ethical relationships with companion species and the
naturecultures of farming, or simply creates a new techno-food assemblage.
C. The taste compared to real meat.
D. The patent on the process.
Answer: B
Explanation: Haraway would likely examine what new kinships and obligations are formed (or
old ones evaded) in this new naturecultural practice.
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139. A city rebuilds its waterfront not with a concrete wall, but with oyster reefs and salt
marshes that absorb storm surge. This approach can be seen as:
A. A weaker alternative to engineering.
B. A form of "thinking with" non-human actants (oysters, grasses) in a responsive ecological
assemblage.
C. Merely a beautification project.
D. An example of pure, untouched nature.
Answer: B
Explanation: This is a practical example of designing with, not against, the agency of other
species and ecological processes.
140. A personal genomics test tells a user they have DNA from three different ancient hominid
species. This information challenges the user's sense of identity by illustrating the concept of:
A. Genetic determinism.
B. The human as a pure, distinct species.
C. The human as a multispecies, hybrid holobiont even on a deep historical scale.
D. The accuracy of commercial DNA tests.
Answer: C
Explanation: The result materially demonstrates human genetic entanglement with other
hominid lineages, challenging purity and separateness.
141. A theorist claims that "soil is a record of its own history, containing the traces of
climates, creatures, and human agriculture; to read it is to read a non-human archive." This claim
aligns with:
A. Only written human history matters.
B. The idea of vibrant, storied matter in material ecocriticism.
C. The belief that matter is inert and silent.
D. A purely chemical understanding of dirt.
Answer: B
Explanation: It exemplifies the view that matter is not passive but is constitutively entangled
with and expressive of history and relations.
142. In a novel, an intelligent swarm of nanobots develops a collective goal different from its
human programmers'. The philosophical problem this raises is about:
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A. The legal ownership of the nanobots.
B. The emergence of non-human intentionality and agency from a distributed system.
C. The programming language used.
D. The energy source for the nanobots.
Answer: B
Explanation: The scenario forces a confrontation with the possibility of genuine, non-human
agency arising from complex, networked systems.
143. A disability rights activist designs a "cosmetic" prosthetic arm that is deliberately non-
realistic, made of polished wood and brass gears, celebrating its mechanical nature. This can be
interpreted as:
A. A failure to achieve normalcy.
B. A posthumanist performance that queers the prosthesis/human boundary and challenges
norms of able-bodiedness.
C. A simple fashion statement.
D. A rejection of all technology.
Answer: B
Explanation: This design intentionally plays with and destabilizes the boundary between body
and machine, challenging normative ideas of the "natural" body.
144. A government uses AI to analyze social media to predict and preempt areas of civil
unrest. A biopolitical-posthumanist critique would focus on how this:
A. Makes efficient use of data.
B. Creates a new form of power that acts upon the virtual "population" of online life, managing
social bodies through predictive algorithms.
C. Violates individual privacy in a traditional sense only.
D. Is an inevitable use of technology.
Answer: B
Explanation: This is biopower extended into the digital sphere, administering a population by
acting on predictive data patterns of life and behavior.
145. An ecological restoration project hires a philosopher to articulate the "rights of the river."
This effort seeks to:
A. Apply human legal concepts in a simplistic way.
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B. Legally recognize the agency and intrinsic value of a non-human entity, shifting the ethical
and legal framework away from pure anthropocentrism.
C. Prevent any human use of the river.
D. Create a tourist attraction.
Answer: B
Explanation: It is a practical attempt to institutionalize a post-anthropocentric ethic by granting
legal standing to a non-human actant.
146. A video game allows players to experience parts of the story from the perspectives of a
bird, a security camera, and a spreading computer virus. This game design is posthumanist
because it:
A. Has the best graphics.
B. Mechanically decenters the human protagonist and explores non-human perception and
agency.
C. Is the most popular game.
D. Avoids human characters entirely.
Answer: B
Explanation: The core mechanic involves experiencing the world and narrative through
radically non-human points of view and modes of action.
147. A scientist studying plant communication says, "We must listen to what the plants are
telling us through chemical signals." A critic retorts, "That's just anthropomorphism; plants don't
'talk.'" A posthumanist response might be:
A. The critic is correct; only humans have language.
B. The scientist is engaging in a speculative but serious attempt to attend to non-human semiosis
(biosemiotics), challenging the human monopoly on communication.
C. Both are wrong because plants are inert.
D. It doesn't matter for science.
Answer: B
Explanation: Posthumanism would support expanding our understanding of communication and
signification beyond the human, as in biosemiotics.
148. During a pandemic, a community mutual aid network forms to deliver groceries to the
vulnerable. A posthumanist reading of this would emphasize it as:
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A. A purely practical solution.
B. An embodied practice of an ethics of vulnerability and relational care, building resilient
networks in response to shared exposure.
C. A temporary measure until the government acts.
D. Proof of human individualism.
Answer: B
Explanation: This exemplifies the ethical practice of responding to shared fragility by building
concrete, caring connections.
149. A filmmaker creates a documentary where the camera acts as an independent, wandering
entity, observing humans, animals, and objects with equal detachment. This style evokes a
posthumanist aesthetic by:
A. Providing a purely objective record.
B. Destabilizing the human-centric "gaze" and presenting a more decentered, flat ontology of
viewing.
C. Using the most expensive camera.
D. Focusing only on beautiful landscapes.
Answer: B
Explanation: It challenges the conventional subject-object relations of filmmaking, offering a
perspective that doesn't privilege the human.
150. A company creates deepfake videos of deceased celebrities to star in new advertisements.
This raises a posthumanist ethical issue primarily concerning:
A. Copyright law.
B. The intra-active re-assemblage of identity, memory, and agency after death, using digital
remains as vibrant matter.
C. The technical skill involved.
D. The celebrity's original contract.
Answer: B
Explanation: It creates a new digital-material assemblage that repurposes the trace of a human
into a new agential role, problematizing boundaries of self, consent, and legacy.
151. A poet writes from the perspective of a glacier calving, describing it as a "slow, grieving
song." A literary scholar using material ecocriticism would analyze this as:
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A. A factual description of a physical process.
B. An example of expressive matter, where the physical event and the poetic expression intra-act
to produce meaning.
C. A simple metaphor.
D. Bad science.
Answer: B
Explanation: Material ecocriticism would see the poem not as just about the glacier, but as a
participation in and expression of the glacier's material expressivity.
152. An architect designs a building that collects rainwater, grows food on its walls, and
changes shape slightly with the wind. This design philosophy can be called:
A. Inefficient and gimmicky.
B. A move toward a building as a metabolic, intra-active participant in its environment rather
than a sealed-off object.
C. A return to primitive huts.
D. Solely about reducing energy costs.
Answer: B
Explanation: The building is designed as an active, responsive node in ecological flows,
exemplifying a posthumanist approach to design.
153. A historian writes a history of the Little Ice Age focusing on how solar minimums,
volcanic eruptions, and peasant subsistence strategies intra-acted to drive political revolutions.
This is an example of:
A. Great Man history.
B. A posthumanist history that weaves together climatic, geological, and human actants.
C. An outdated environmental determinism.
D. A history that ignores people.
Answer: B
Explanation: This narrative treats human and non-human forces as entangled agents in historical
change, decentering human causality alone.
154. In a debate about space colonization, one side argues it is our "human destiny." The other
argues we must focus on repairing Earth because we are "terrestrial, earthbound creatures." The
latter view is more aligned with:
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A. Transhumanism.
B. A posthumanist emphasis on embeddedness, specific embodiment, and responsibility to our
planetary kin.
C. A rejection of all technology.
D. A religious doctrine.
Answer: B
Explanation: This "terrestrial" argument stresses our specific, embodied, and responsible
entanglements on Earth, a key posthumanist (e.g., Haraway, Morton) stance against escape
narratives.
155. A smartphone's "digital wellbeing" app reports your screen time, prompting you to reflect
on your habits. This creates a feedback loop where the technology:
A. Is a completely passive tool.
B. Acts as an agential participant in shaping your self-perception and behavior, forming a
recursive cognitive assemblage.
C. Is solely under your control.
D. Should be ignored.
Answer: B
Explanation: The app is an active non-human agent that provides data which intra-acts with
your consciousness to potentially alter future actions.
156. A novelist describes a future where genetically engineered "mourning trees" are planted
at gravesites, their leaves changing color with the seasons of the deceased's life. A posthumanist
reading would see this as imagining:
A. A useless fantasy.
B. A new naturecultural practice of kinship and memory that intimately entangles human and
plant life cycles.
C. A violation of natural tree biology.
D. A purely symbolic gesture.
Answer: B
Explanation: It imagines a concrete, biological practice that creates new, meaningful
connections between human death and non-human life processes.
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157. A policy analyst suggests treating invasive species not as "enemies to eradicate" but as
"new immigrants" to be managed in novel ecosystems. This shift in framing reflects a move
toward:
A. Anthropomorphism.
B. A posthumanist ethic that avoids militaristic, human-centric language and acknowledges the
new, irreversible assemblages formed.
C. Scientific inaccuracy.
D. Political correctness.
Answer: B
Explanation: It reframes the issue away from a war on nature toward an acknowledgment of
ongoing, dynamic, and irreversible multispecies relationships.
158. An art installation consists of a room where viewers' brainwaves (via EEG) control the
intensity and color of lights and sounds. This work explores:
A. The purity of abstract art.
B. The intra-active feedback loop between human corporeality/consciousness and a
technological environment, blurring subject and object.
C. The cost of EEG equipment.
D. A fixed, predetermined experience.
Answer: B
Explanation: The installation creates a system where the human body and the environment are
in a constant, mutually shaping relationship.
159. A philosopher argues that a rock, a hurricane, and a corporation all have a similar mode
of existence as "objects" that act in the world. This philosopher is most likely advocating for:
A. Anthropocentrism.
B. Object-Oriented Ontology.
C. Human exceptionalism.
D. Social constructivism.
Answer: B
Explanation: OOO places all entities, regardless of scale or sentience, on a flat ontological plane
as objects that act.
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160. A community facing sea-level rise decides not to build a wall but to gradually relocate,
designating the changing coastline as a "heritage zone of transition." This decision can be
interpreted as:
A. Defeatism.
B. A posthumanist practice of "staying with the trouble," adapting responsively rather than
attempting total control, and honoring a dynamic landscape.
C. Merely the cheapest option.
D. Abandoning their history.
Answer: B
Explanation: This reflects a Haraway-esque approach of adapting responsively to a changing
world, acknowledging non-human agency (the sea), and finding meaning in change rather than
fighting it.
Flashcards / Quick Recall Items (35)
1. Prompt: The worldview that places humans at the center of value and meaning.
Answer: Anthropocentrism.
2. Prompt: Author of "A Cyborg Manifesto."
Answer: Donna Haraway.
3. Prompt: The impersonal, generative force of life in Braidotti's work.
Answer: Zoe.
4. Prompt: The theory that knowing, being, and ethics are inseparable (Barad).
Answer: Ethico-onto-epistem-ology.
5. Prompt: The proposed geological epoch defined by human impact.
Answer: Anthropocene.
6. Prompt: A philosophical movement that rejects "correlationism."
Answer: Speculative Realism.
7. Prompt: The model that locates disability in societal barriers, not individual bodies.
Answer: Social Model (of disability).
8. Prompt: Barad's term for the mutual constitution of agencies through encounter.
Answer: Intra-action.
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9. Prompt: Agamben's term for life reduced to bare biology under sovereign power.
Answer: Bare Life (or Zoe).
10. Prompt: The theory that humans and technology have co-evolved (Hayles).
Answer: Technogenesis.
11. Prompt: Morton's term for massively distributed entities like climate change.
Answer: Hyperobjects.
12. Prompt: The idea that objects have a reality independent of their relations (OOO).
Answer: Withdrawal.
13. Prompt: Bennett's term for the active power of nonhuman matter.
Answer: Vibrant Matter / Thing-Power.
14. Prompt: Haraway's term for inseparable nature-culture worlds.
Answer: Naturecultures.
15. Prompt: Foucault's term for power exercised over biological life.
Answer: Biopower / Biopolitics.
16. Prompt: Hayles's term for a distributed system of human-technical cognition.
Answer: Cognitive Assemblage.
17. Prompt: The ethical stance starting from shared fragility and interdependence.
Answer: Ethics of Vulnerability.
18. Prompt: Deleuze & Guattari's term for an affective alliance with nonhuman capacities.
Answer: Becoming-Animal.
19. Prompt: The concept that the human body is a multi-species collective.
Answer: Holobiont (or Microbiome).
20. Prompt: The alternative term to Anthropocene emphasizing capitalist drivers.
Answer: Capitalocene.
21. Prompt: Latour's theory granting agency to nonhumans in networks.
Answer: Actor-Network Theory (ANT).
22. Prompt: Knowledge that acknowledges its partial, embodied perspective (Haraway).
Answer: Situated Knowledges.
23. Prompt: The material interpenetration of bodies and environments.
Answer: Transcorporality.
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24. Prompt: Braidotti's term for a non-unitary, transformative subjectivity.
Answer: Nomadic Subject / Becoming.
25. Prompt: The study of signs and communication in all living systems.
Answer: Biosemiotics.
26. Prompt: Haraway's later concept for making kin in a damaged world.
Answer: Chthulucene.
27. Prompt: The philosophical critique seeking to move beyond humanist subjectivity.
Answer: (Critical) Posthumanism.
28. Prompt: The project of technologically enhancing human capacities.
Answer: Transhumanism.
29. Prompt: The theoretical shift emphasizing the material, lived body.
Answer: Corporeal Turn.
30. Prompt: An ecological perspective acknowledging disturbing interconnectedness (Morton).
Answer: Dark Ecology.
31. Prompt: Wolfe's argument that this must precede animal studies.
Answer: Posthumanism.
32. Prompt: The primary ontological unit in Barad's agential realism.
Answer: Phenomena.
33. Prompt: The idea that cognition extends into the environment.
Answer: Extended Mind Hypothesis.
34. Prompt: Haraway's term for significant, co-constituting cross-species relationships.
Answer: Companion Species.
35. Prompt: The "posthuman condition" recognizes humans are not the sole ______.
Answer: Agents / meaning-producing actors.
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Chapter 9 Practice Questions and Answers Guide: Posthumanism and Artificial Life
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. In contrast to Maturana's autopoietic circularity, what figure describes the third wave of thought
in Artificial Life?
A) A closed loop
B) A linear progression
C) A spiral
D) A static point
Answer: C
Explanation: The text states the third wave is best described as a spiral, imparting upward
tension to break circular patterns.
2. Francisco Varela bridges the transition between which waves of thought?
A) First and second waves
B) Second and third waves
C) Third and fourth waves
D) First and third waves
Answer: B
Explanation: Varela is positioned as bridging the second and third waves, just as von Foerster
bridged the first and second.
3. According to Varela and Bourgine, autonomy refers to a living system's capacity to:
A) Respond predictably to external programming
B) Be and bring forth a significant world
C) Optimize for pre-defined evolutionary goals
D) Isolate itself completely from environmental interaction
Answer: B
Explanation: Their definition emphasizes the capacity to assert existence and bring forth a
pertinent world without pre-digestion.
4. A key difference between Maturana's and Varela's view of "shaping a world into significance" is
that Varela emphasizes:
A) The primacy of internal, perception-driven processes
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B) The system's potential for self-transformation through emergence
C) The absolute separation of observer and system
D) The rejection of any evolutionary framework
Answer: B
Explanation: For Varela, the key is the system's organization transforming itself through
emergent behavior.
5. Thomas Ray's Tierra program operates within a:
A) Wetware environment
B) Hardware robot
C) Software-based virtual computer
D) Biological primeval soup
Answer: C
Explanation: Tierra is a software creation using a virtual computer with address-by-template
matching.
6. In Tierra, what mechanism introduces mutation analogous to cosmic rays?
A) The reaper program
B) The slicer program
C) Flipping a bit polarity periodically
D) Address-by-template matching errors
Answer: C
Explanation: Mutation is introduced by having the program flip a bit's polarity once every
10,000 executed instructions.
7. The narrative analysis of Tierra identifies that Ray's use of terms like "parasite" functions as:
A) An incidental, belated analogy
B) An overlay of human attributes onto inert code
C) An explication of the program's original artifactual design
D) A scientifically inaccurate distortion
Answer: C
Explanation: The analogy is central to the design intention, not an overlay; explanation and
interpretation are entwined.
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8. In the Santa Fe Institute video, the transformation path shown is:
A) Material base → representational code → functionality
B) Functionality → material base → representational code
C) Material base → functionality → representational code
D) Representational code → functionality → material base
Answer: C
Explanation: The computer (material) is translated to its functions (programs), then to familiar
visual codes (creature bodies).
9. Christopher Langton's strong claim for Artificial Life is based on the assumption that:
A) Material basis is primary for aliveness
B) 'Aliveness' is a property of logical form separable from material basis
C) Embodiment is a necessary condition for life
D) Simulation can never equal reality
Answer: B
Explanation: Langton assumes logical form can be separated from material basis, and aliveness
resides in the form.
10. According to the text, what does the synthetic approach of AL reintroduce that the analytic
approach discards?
A) Predictive certainty
B) Simplifying assumptions
C) Reductive methodologies
D) Emergent complexities
Answer: D
Explanation: The synthetic approach lets complexities emerge spontaneously, adding back what
analysis discarded.
11. Rodney Brooks's aphorism summarizing his robotic philosophy is:
A) "Consciousness is an epiphenomenon"
B) "The world is its own best model"
C) "Fast, cheap, and out of control"
D) "Life-as-it-could-be"
Answer: B
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Explanation: Brooks argues the robot learns through environmental interaction, needing no
central world representation.
12. Brooks's subsumption architecture for robots prioritizes:
A) A central world representation
B) Direct sensor-actuator connections with minimal communication
C) High-level cognitive planning modules
D) Digital over analogue computation
Answer: B
Explanation: Subsumption architecture uses simple, distributed modules with direct
connections, not central control.
13. In the AL community, consciousness is often viewed as:
A) The main show and seat of human subjectivity
B) A representational map of the world
C) An epiphenomenon arising from deeper layers
D) Equivalent to logical form
Answer: C
Explanation: A circulating aphorism labels consciousness an epiphenomenon, a latecomer
dependent on more essential processes.
14. A key distinction between AI and AL, per Michael Dyer, is that AL sees cognition as the
operation of:
A) Logic
B) Nervous systems
C) Symbolic manipulation
D) Independent perception
Answer: B
Explanation: AL views cognition as the operation of nervous systems, integrated with
sensory/motor experience.
15. In the computational universe vision, everything is reducible at some level to:
A) Matter
B) Energy
C) Information
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D) Consciousness
Answer: C
Explanation: Proponents see everything reducible to information processing.
16. Cellular automata (CAs) were first proposed by John von Neumann in his search to describe:
A) Neural network learning
B) Self-reproducing automata
C) Quantum computation
D) Genetic algorithms
Answer: B
Explanation: Von Neumann sought to describe self-reproducing automata, abstracted into CAs
by Stanislaw Ulam.
17. Langton's research suggests computation is most likely to arise at the boundary between:
A) Order and stasis
B) Chaos and noise
C) Order and chaos
D) Stasis and noise
Answer: C
Explanation: Computation emerges at the "edge of chaos," where innovation/replication tension
exists.
18. Stuart Kauffman's work on life's origins suggests life is most likely to arise:
A) Through natural selection alone
B) In purely ordered systems
C) At the edge of chaos
D) From external divine intervention
Answer: C
Explanation: Kauffman argues for self-organization at the edge of chaos, matching conditions
for computation emergence.
19. Evolutionary psychology, as described, models behavior as modular programs resulting from:
A) Cultural construction alone
B) Evolutionary tinkering for reproductive fitness
C) Individual conscious choice
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D) Disembodied informational patterns
Answer: B
Explanation: It argues for universal underlying structures shaped by evolutionary adaptations
for fitness.
20. Luc Steels' concept of "second-order emergence" privileges emergence that bestows:
A) Aesthetic patterns
B) Additional functionality, especially information processing
C) Pure self-replication
D) Emotional capacity
Answer: B
Explanation: Second-order emergence grants special status to properties enhancing
functionality like information processing.
21. The text warns the computational universe becomes dangerous when it shifts from a heuristic to:
A) A testable hypothesis
B) An ideology privileging information
C) A biological theory
D) An embodied practice
Answer: B
Explanation: The danger lies in it becoming an ideology valuing information over all else.
22. Antonio Damasio argues that feelings are:
A) Irrational impediments to cognition
B) Just as cognitive as other percepts
C) Trivial life-support system signals
D) Separate from the mind's rational workings
Answer: B
Explanation: Damasio contends feelings are cognitive, part of thought and rationality, through
which the mind perceives the body.
23. Marvin Minsky, at a plenary lecture, suggested a student with a robot motion simulation learned
more in six months than roboticists did in six years of building actual robots, implying:
A) Embodiment problems are conceptually paramount
B) Simulation is more efficient and informative than dealing with materiality
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C) Robotics is a trivial pursuit
D) Material resistance is the core intellectual challenge
Answer: B
Explanation: Minsky presents simulation as more efficient for learning, downplaying the
significance of embodied material challenges.
24. The central epistemological role of the observer, highlighted in second-wave cybernetics, is seen
in the third wave as:
A) Remaining at the center
B) Retreating to the periphery
C) Becoming the sole creator of reality
D) Vanishing altogether
Answer: B
Explanation: In the third wave, the observer retreats to the periphery, leading to a loss of
epistemological sophistication.
25. In Tierra, the "reaper" program controls population by eliminating:
A) The fastest replicators
B) Random organisms
C) The oldest and most defective
D) The largest creatures
Answer: C
Explanation: The reaper eliminates the oldest and those who err most frequently in execution.
26. The Tierra narrative's "epic" nature is compared to stories of:
A) Simple mechanical operation
B) The rise and fall of races struggling for lineage
C) Pre-programmed deterministic outcomes
D) Peaceful coexistence
Answer: B
Explanation: The narrative is likened to an epic portraying life's grand scale, with races rising
and falling.
27. The "strong claim" in AL is politically useful because it helps the field:
A) Secure more funding from biological conservation projects
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B) Jockey for position against established research agendas
C) Align with vitalist philosophies
D) Reject all reductionist methodologies
Answer: B
Explanation: As a new field, AL uses the strong claim to position itself as studying life itself,
not just simulations.
28. Hans Moravec's narrative envisions the future replacement of humans by intelligent machines as:
A) An unprecedented and alarming event
B) A rematch of an earlier carbon-silicon contest
C) A peaceful merging of forms
D) An evolutionary impossibility
Answer: B
Explanation: Moravec uses Cairns-Smith's hypothesis to frame it as a rematch, increasing
plausibility.
29. According to the text, the AL paradigm reconfigures human intelligence by:
A) Using it as the fixed measure for machine success
B) Seeing it as an epiphenomenon atop machinelike functions
C) Denying its evolutionary origins
D) Equating it directly with logical form
Answer: B
Explanation: AL reconfigures human consciousness as an epiphenomenon on distributed
systems, making the machine the model for the human.
30. The vision of downloading consciousness into a computer, endorsed by Minsky and Moravec, is
challenged by Damasio's argument that:
A) Data storage technology is insufficient
B) Consciousness without an embodied organism isn't human mind
C) Feelings are irrelevant to cognition
D) The brain is simply a multiprocessor
Answer: B
Explanation: Damasio argues mind is inherently anchored in the body; a human mind without a
human body wouldn't exist.
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31. The text concludes that if the observer is acknowledged as part of the picture, bodies:
A) Can be successfully reduced to pure information
B) Can be downloaded into digital formats
C) Can never be made of information alone
D) Become trivial obstacles to progress
Answer: C
Explanation: The final line states that with the observer included, bodies cannot be made of
information alone.
32. William Grey Walter's electronic tortoise and Ross Ashby's homeostat are referenced as origins
for AL in the field of:
A) Psychoanalysis
B) Cybernetics
C) Quantum physics
D) Existential philosophy
Answer: B
Explanation: Varela and Bourgine locate AL's origins in cybernetics, referencing these early
cybernetic artifacts.
33. In the software branch of AL, complexity is intended to emerge from:
A) Top-down programming of intricate rules
B) A few simple local rules and recursive structures
C) Direct copying of biological genetic code
D) Centralized control algorithms
Answer: B
Explanation: The approach starts with simple local rules and allows complexity via recursive,
emergent processes.
34. The "address by template" technique in Tierra's virtual computer is inspired by:
A) Neurological synaptic transmission
B) The topological matching of DNA bases
C) Economic market competition
D) Architectural design principles
Answer: B
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Explanation: It takes its cue from DNA base pairing, matching code segments by looking for a
binary inverse.
35. The analysis of the Tierra video notes that the seamless transition between the CPU landscape
and the creature lifeworld elides the difference between:
A) Analog and digital computation
B) Pastoral and urban imagery
C) Material space and imagined space
D) Two different material architectures
Answer: C
Explanation: It blurs the computer's internal material space and the imagined space of addresses
and polarities.
Multiple-Response / Select-All-That-Apply Questions
36. Which of the following are identified as the three conventional research fronts of Artificial Life?
(Select all that apply.)
A) Wetware
B) Hardware
C) Software
D) Mindware
Answer: A, B, C
Explanation: The text divides AL into wetware (artificial biological life), hardware (robots), and
software (computer programs).
37. According to the narrative analysis, which levels constitute the multilayered narrative system in
Artificial Life? (Select all that apply.)
A) The operations of a specific program like Tierra
B) Arguments positioning AL within theoretical biology
C) Speculations on human-silicon relations
D) The financial funding proposals for research
Answer: A, B, C
Explanation: The three levels are: program narratives, field-positioning arguments, and stories
about human and silicon life relations.
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38. Which of the following sources are compiled to create the first-level narrative account of Tierra?
(Select all that apply.)
A) Ray's published articles
B) Ray's unpublished working papers
C) Conversations with Ray
D) Public lectures by Ray
Answer: A, B, C, D
Explanation: The account is compiled from all these sources: articles, papers, conversations,
and lectures.
39. Which characteristics does the text associate with "emergence" in AL software? (Select all that
apply.)
A) Properties appear on their own
B) Development is always as anticipated by the creator
C) It involves complex feedback loops
D) Small deviations can become magnified
Answer: A, C, D
Explanation: Emergence involves unexpected properties, complex feedback loops, and
magnification of small deviations.
40. Which of the following are listed as sources of mutation in the Tierra program? (Select all that
apply.)
A) The "reaper" program
B) Bit flips analogous to cosmic rays
C) Replication errors
D) "Sloppy reproduction" absorbing code fragments
Answer: B, C, D
Explanation: Mutation sources are bit flips, replication errors, and sloppy reproduction. The
reaper controls population, not mutation.
41. What types of organisms evolved in Tierra runs, according to the narrative? (Select all that
apply.)
A) 80-byte ancestors
B) 22-byte organisms
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C) Parasites
D) Hyperparasites
Answer: A, B, C, D
Explanation: All these organisms are mentioned: the original ancestor, a smaller 22-byte
organism, parasites, and hyperparasites.
42. Which researchers are mentioned as being interviewed by anthropologist Stefan Helmreich at the
Santa Fe Institute? (Select all that apply.)
A) Christopher Langton
B) Thomas Ray
C) John Holland
D) Rodney Brooks
Answer: A, B, C
Explanation: Helmreich interviewed Langton, Ray, and Holland, among others. Brooks is
discussed but not listed as an interviewee in that specific context.
43. Which philosophical assumptions are identified as resonating in Langton's definition of life?
(Select all that apply.)
A) Form can be logically separated from matter
B) Form is privileged over matter
C) Form defines life
D) Material basis is primary for aliveness
Answer: A, B, C
Explanation: Langton's definition reinscribes assumptions of separable form, form's privilege,
and form defining life.
44. According to the text, what are the two main contrasting views of information that existed during
the Macy Conferences? (Select all that apply.)
A) A disembodied view of information
B) A contextualized embodied view
C) A quantum physical view
D) A mystical view
Answer: A, B
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Explanation: The Macy Conferences had camps arguing for disembodied versus contextualized
embodied views of information.
45. Which of the following are identified as implications of the strong claim for AL's status within
theoretical biology? (Select all that apply.)
A) AL simulations are merely interesting artifacts
B) AL represents an alternative evolutionary pathway
C) It helps locate carbon-based life within life-as-it-could-be
D) It presupposes life's essence is medium-independent
Answer: B, C, D
Explanation: The strong claim positions AL as a second instance of life, broadening biology's
empirical base and assuming a medium-independent essence.
46. Which researchers are associated with emphasizing the importance of physical embodiment for
agents? (Select all that apply.)
A) Hans Moravec
B) Rodney Brooks
C) Pattie Maes
D) Mark Tilden
Answer: B, C, D
Explanation: Brooks, Maes, and Tilden advocate for embodied agents. Moravec privileges
consciousness separable from body.
47. What capabilities do Mark Tilden's insect-like robots exhibit? (Select all that apply.)
A) Emergent gait
B) Self-righting when overturned
C) Learning compensatory gaits if damaged
D) Centralized cognitive representation
Answer: A, B, C
Explanation: Tilden's robots show emergent gait, robustness, self-righting, and adaptive
learning. They lack central representation.
48. Which of the following are cited as aphorisms circulating in the AL community? (Select all that
apply.)
A) "The world is its own best model"
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B) "Fast, cheap, and out of control"
C) "Consciousness is an epiphenomenon"
D) "Information is physical"
Answer: A, B, C
Explanation: Brooks uses A and B; C is a community aphorism. "Information is physical" is not
highlighted as a circulating saying here.
49. According to Dyer's comparison, how does AL view cognition in contrast to AI? (Select all that
apply.)
A) As operation of logic
B) As operation of nervous systems
C) As integrated with sensory/motor experience
D) As independent of perception
Answer: B, C
Explanation: AL sees cognition as nervous system operation integrated with experience. AI
views it as logic, often independent of perception.
50. What functions does Langton analyze as fundamental operations of computation? (Select all that
apply.)
A) Transfer of information
B) Storage of information
C) Modification of information
D) Creation of information ex nihilo
Answer: A, B, C
Explanation: Langton analyzes computation as requiring transfer, storage, and modification of
information.
51. Which of the following are presented as potential evolutionary heirs to humans within the
computational universe ideology? (Select all that apply.)
A) Intelligent machines
B) Humans who become computers
C) Unmodified biological humans
D) Extraterrestrial life
Answer: A, B
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Explanation: The ideology frames the choice as machines replacing us or us joining them by
becoming computational.
52. Which theorists are noted for emphasizing the importance of embodiment and resisting a purely
informational view? (Select all that apply.)
A) Antonio Damasio
B) Jerome Barkow
C) Leda Cosmides
D) John Tooby
Answer: A, B, C, D
Explanation: Damasio argues for the body's role in mind. Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby's
evolutionary psychology model, while computational, is carefully embodied.
53. What problems does the text associate with taking simulation as fully representative of reality?
(Select all that apply.)
A) Simulations are more efficient
B) Everything not in the simulation is deemed trivial
C) It obscures the resistant materialities of embodiment
D) It is always conceptually interesting
Answer: B, C
Explanation: The danger is declaring non-simulated elements trivial/unimportant and ignoring
embodied material challenges. Efficiency is a stated advantage, not a problem.
54. Which concepts from earlier cybernetics does the terminology of "first-order" and "second-
order" emergence echo? (Select all that apply.)
A) First-order cybernetics
B) Second-order cybernetics
C) Third-order cybernetics
D) Homeostasis
Answer: A, B
Explanation: The text states this terminology echoes the distinction between first- and second-
order cybernetics.
55. In the vision of the computational universe, what is seen as the essential function of humans,
machines, and the cosmos? (Select all that apply.)
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A) Processing information
B) Experiencing emotion
C) Biological reproduction
D) Running programs
Answer: A, D
Explanation: The core function is processing information; humans are programs run by the
cosmic computer.
True/False or Short-Answer Variants
56. True or False: Humberto Maturana's concept of autopoiesis is characterized as a spiral process.
Answer: False
Explanation: Autopoiesis is described as a circular process. The spiral describes the contrasting
third wave.
57. True or False: Francisco Varela co-authored The Embodied Mind before working in Artificial
Life.
Answer: True
Explanation: The text states after co-authoring that work, Varela began working in the new field
of AL.
58. True or False: In the third wave of thought, the observer is at the center of the epistemological
revolution.
Answer: False
Explanation: In the third wave, the observer retreats to the periphery, unlike in Maturana's
second-wave-centered epistemology.
59. True or False: Thomas Ray's two proposals at the 1994 conference were seen as complementary,
one for protein-based and one for silicon-based biodiversity.
Answer: True
Explanation: Ray proposed preserving Costa Rican rainforests and releasing Tierra online,
aiming for biodiversity in both mediums.
60. True or False: The Tierra program's "soup" is an analogy for the computer's central processing
unit.
Answer: False
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Explanation: The "soup" is an analogy for the primeval soup, a block of memory where
replication begins.
61. True or False: Ray's rhetoric in Tierra is identical to Richard Dawkins's anthropomorphism
in The Selfish Gene.
Answer: False
Explanation: Ray's biomorphic naming explicates original design intention, whereas Dawkins
overlays human agency onto genes.
62. True or False: The visual representation of Tierra creatures as solid polygons is a direct
representation of their physical form in the computer.
Answer: False
Explanation: The creatures have bodies only metaphorically; the polygons are a representational
code, not a direct physical mapping.
63. True or False: For the creatures in Tierra, genotype and phenotype are distinct, as in biological
organisms.
Answer: False
Explanation: For them, the code is the organism; genotype and phenotype amount to the same
thing.
64. True or False: Christopher Langton's strong claim is easily dismissed as purely tautological, with
no deeper cultural assumptions.
Answer: False
Explanation: While tautological, it also reinscribes deep Western philosophical assumptions
about form and matter.
65. True or False: The sciences of complexity, from nonlinear dynamics, completely overturned
reductionism in scientific thinking.
Answer: False
Explanation: They complicated the picture and articulated limits on reductionism, but AL
researchers did not fully relinquish it.
66. True or False: Stefan Helmreich's informants universally believed the worlds they created were
fundamentally material, not mathematical.
Answer: False
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Explanation: Some thought the world was mathematical or informational in essence, not
fundamentally material.
67. True or False: Edward Fredkin believed reality is a software program run by a cosmic computer
whose nature we can know.
Answer: False
Explanation: Fredkin believed the cosmic computer's nature must remain unknown, as it lies
outside the reality whose programs it runs.
68. True or False: The synthetic approach of AL is seen as potentially able to "procreate by
emergence," unlike the analytic approach which "murders by dissection."
Answer: True
Explanation: This analogy is presented: if analysis murders, synthesis may procreate.
69. True or False: Hans Moravec privileges locomotion and environmental interaction as the essence
of human being.
Answer: False
Explanation: Moravec privileges consciousness. Brooks emphasizes locomotion and robust
interaction.
70. True or False: Rodney Brooks's Genghis robot has a pre-programmed, fixed gait.
Answer: False
Explanation: Genghis's gait emerges as its legs learn to stabilize in relation to each other at each
startup.
71. True or False: Brooks considers insect intelligence trivial in the evolutionary timeline toward
human intelligence.
Answer: False
Explanation: He says insect intelligence is "nothing to sneer at," representing 9.5% of the
evolutionary journey.
72. True or False: In the AL paradigm, the human serves as the measure for judging machine
intelligence success.
Answer: False
Explanation: In AI, the human is the measure (e.g., Turing test). In AL, human intelligence is
reconfigured in the machine's evolutionary image.
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73. True or False: Cellular automata are complex finite-state machines whose state depends on a
central controller.
Answer: False
Explanation: CAs are simple finite-state machines whose state depends on initial conditions,
rules, and neighbor states, not a central controller.
74. True or False: Stanislaw Ulam suggested abstracting von Neumann's self-reproducing automaton
into a grid of cells.
Answer: True
Explanation: Ulam suggested the abstraction to a cellular grid, reducing resistant materiality to
transparent cells.
75. True or False: Stuart Kauffman argues natural selection alone is sufficient to explain the rapid
origins of life.
Answer: False
Explanation: Kauffman argues for an additional ordering principle: spontaneous self-
organization at the edge of chaos.
76. True or False: Evolutionary psychology posits that evolutionary adaptations lead to rigid,
universal behaviors in all humans.
Answer: False
Explanation: It posits universal underlying structures or potentials, but actual behavior results
from interplay with environmental inputs.
77. True or False: Luc Steels considers all emergent properties equally valuable for Artificial Life
programs.
Answer: False
Explanation: He privileges second-order emergence that bestows additional functionality like
information processing.
78. True or False: Marvin Minsky defined a person primarily as a head, arms, and legs.
Answer: False
Explanation: Minsky called that "trivial," defining a person as a large multiprocessor, a
complicated machine.
79. True or False: Antonio Damasio views feelings as separate from rational thought and cognition.
Answer: False
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Explanation: Damasio argues feelings are cognitive, part of rational thought, and how the mind
perceives the body.
80. True or False: The text asserts that posthumanity is a future possibility we must choose to
embrace.
Answer: False
Explanation: It states posthumanity is already here; the question is what kind of posthumans we
will be.
81. True or False: The "observer" in AL narratives remains only as the narrator and narratee of
stories.
Answer: True
Explanation: While retreated from epistemological center, the observer remains as the
storyteller and audience.
82. True or False: The Tierra video's pastoral imagery and biblical references are analyzed as
scientifically neutral representations.
Answer: False
Explanation: They are analyzed as part of a narrative that transforms binary operations into high
drama, not neutral science.
83. True or False: AL's "bottom-up" approach is shared across its wetware, hardware, and software
branches.
Answer: True
Explanation: All three branches share the sense of building life from the bottom up.
84. True or False: Hyperparasites in Tierra evolved to compete for memory but not for processing
time.
Answer: False
Explanation: Hyperparasites competed for time as well as memory, appropriating parasite time
for their own reproduction.
85. True or False: The text suggests that the definition of information is stable, natural, and not
socially constructed.
Answer: False
Explanation: It states information is a socially constructed concept that has been given different
definitions.
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Application / Scenario-Based Questions
86. A researcher creates a virtual environment where simple digital agents compete for resources.
The agents' codes can mutate, and over thousands of generations, complex social behaviors like
cooperation and deception emerge. This research most closely aligns with the methodology of:
A) Maturana's autopoietic analysis
B) Thomas Ray's Tierra program
C) Rodney Brooks's subsumption architecture
D) Hans Moravec's consciousness downloading
Answer: B
Explanation: This describes a software-based AL approach using evolution and emergence
within a virtual computer, akin to Tierra.
87. A theorist argues that to truly understand a frog's intelligence, one must build a physical robot
frog that interacts with a real swamp, learning through sensorimotor loops without a central
world model. This philosopher's approach is most similar to:
A) Christopher Langton
B) Hans Moravec
C) Rodney Brooks
D) Edward Fredkin
Answer: C
Explanation: This embodies Brooks's embodied, bottom-up philosophy where the world is its
own best model.
88. In a debate about the nature of life, a scientist claims, "If we can isolate the logical form of self-
replication and open-ended evolution, and instantiate it in a computer, that instantiation is just as
alive as a bacterium." This scientist is making:
A) The weak claim of AL as simulation
B) The strong claim of AL as life
C) A Maturanian autopoietic argument
D) A vitalist argument against reductionism
Answer: B
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Explanation: This is the strong claim, asserting aliveness resides in separable logical form, not
specific material basis.
89. An art installation features a simulation where geometric shapes move, replicate, and compete on
a large screen. The accompanying voiceover describes them as "creatures," "parasites," and
"ancestors," narrating a dramatic story of survival. A critic influenced by this chapter would
likely argue that the installation's power derives from:
A) Its accurate scientific simulation of genetics
B) Its seamless elision of material computation and imagined narrative drama
C) Its rejection of all anthropomorphic interpretation
D) Its emphasis on the observer's peripheral, non-involved position
Answer: B
Explanation: The critique would focus on how narrative intertwines with program operation,
transforming code execution into biological epic.
90. A new field proposes that human cognitive modules are like evolved computer programs
designed for problems in our ancestral environment. This field is:
A) Second-order cybernetics
B) Artificial Intelligence
C) Evolutionary psychology
D) Cellular automata theory
Answer: C
Explanation: This describes evolutionary psychology's core premise, as outlined by Barkow,
Cosmides, and Tooby.
91. A philosopher contends that feeling hungry or afraid is not a distraction from thinking but a
crucial form of cognitive input about bodily state necessary for rational decision-making. This
aligns most closely with the views of:
A) Marvin Minsky
B) Hans Moravec
C) Antonio Damasio
D) Christopher Langton
Answer: C
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Explanation: Damasio argues emotions and feelings are cognitive and part of rational thought,
communicating body state to mind.
92. A futurist describes a scenario where human consciousness is scanned and uploaded into a
planetary computer network, leaving the biological body behind. This vision is most directly
championed in the text by:
A) Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana
B) Rodney Brooks and Pattie Maes
C) Hans Moravec and Marvin Minsky
D) Thomas Ray and Christopher Langton
Answer: C
Explanation: Moravec and Minsky are associated with the dream of downloading consciousness
into a computer.
93. A research team builds small, solar-powered robots that explore rough terrain. Each robot uses
simple analog circuits, has no central brain, and learns to walk through the interaction of its legs.
Their design philosophy is "fast, cheap, and out of control." This team's work is most influenced
by:
A) Mark Tilden
B) John von Neumann
C) Walter Fontana
D) Stefan Helmreich
Answer: A
Explanation: Tilden, influenced by Brooks, builds robust, analogue, insect-like robots with
emergent gaits, embodying this philosophy.
94. A conference presentation argues that the universe is fundamentally made of discrete,
computational units (like cellular automata), and that physics emerges from their local
interactions. This view is most associated with:
A) Stuart Kauffman
B) Edward Fredkin
C) John Holland
D) Leda Cosmides
Answer: B
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Explanation: Fredkin is cited for the view that reality is informational code, run on a cosmic
computer, with CAs as foundational.
95. An anthropologist studying a lab notes researchers speak of their digital creations as "inhabiting
a world" with its own "physics" and "ecology." The anthropologist would be observing the
researchers':
A) Naive literal belief in fantasy
B) Operational need for precise technical jargon
C) Conceptual construction of self-consistent, closed systems governed by low-level laws
D) Rejection of all metaphorical language
Answer: C
Explanation: This reflects Helmreich's summary of how AL researchers conceptualize the
"worlds" they create.
96. When analyzing a claim that a computer virus is a form of life because it replicates and evolves,
a critic using this chapter's framework would note that such a claim depends on:
A) Accepting that material substrate is essential for life
B) A narrative that maps code operations onto biological scenarios, privileging form over matter
C) A strict Maturanian definition of operational closure
D) The virus's capacity for embodied sensorimotor interaction
Answer: B
Explanation: The claim bridges the gap from code to life through narrative mapping and the
assumption that life is logical form.
97. A theorist claims that human consciousness is merely a "cheap trick" that emerged late in
evolution to adjudicate conflicts between more fundamental perceptual systems. This echoes the
perspective of:
A) Hans Moravec
B) Rodney Brooks
C) Humberto Maturana
D) Thomas Ray
Answer: B
Explanation: Brooks describes consciousness as a "cheap trick," an epiphenomenal control
system for adjudicating conflicts.
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98. In a theoretical biology seminar, a researcher proposes that to find universal principles of life, we
must study not just carbon-based life but also synthetic life in computers. This proposal mirrors
the argument of:
A) Walter Fontana et al. on discovering a "logical deep structure" of life
B) Antonio Damasio on embodied mind
C) Stefan Helmreich on anthropologic method
D) Marvin Minsky on society of mind
Answer: A
Explanation: Fontana's agenda seeks a logical deep structure manifest in carbon chemistry but
also in alternative media like silicon.
99. A student designs a quiz question testing the difference between seeing cognition as "operation
of logic" versus "operation of nervous systems." This distinction derives from the comparison
between:
A) AI and AL
B) First- and second-wave cybernetics
C) Hardware and wetware
D) Autopoiesis and allopoiesis
Answer: A
Explanation: Michael Dyer's comparison distinguishes AI (cognition as logic) from AL
(cognition as nervous systems).
100. A critical response to an article proclaiming "the information age makes bodies obsolete"
would, per this chapter, correctly point out that:
A) Information has always been defined as disembodied
B) Information is a socially constructed concept, and bodies still matter
C) Everyone in AL agrees bodies are irrelevant
D) The observer's role confirms bodies are just information
Answer: B
Explanation: The text argues information's definition is not natural or fixed, and material
embodiment remains crucial.
101. If one wanted to critique the "computational universe" ideology for being reductionist
and dangerous, the most effective textual evidence would be its:
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A) Admiration for the complexity of biological evolution
B) Privileging of information processing as the supreme value, framing human obsolescence as
inevitable
C) Emphasis on the creative potential of synthetic life
D) Respect for the resistant materialities of embodiment
Answer: B
Explanation: The danger lies in it becoming an ideology that makes information king, logically
leading to human replacement as an evolutionary inevitability.
102. In designing a robot for exploring Mars, a team prioritizes a decentralized control system,
robustness, and low cost over high-level cognitive planning. Their motto is "fast, cheap, and out
of control." Their chief intellectual influence is likely:
A) John von Neumann
B) Rodney Brooks
C) Christopher Langton
D) Hans Moravec
Answer: B
Explanation: This is Brooks's aphorism and design philosophy for robots like Genghis.
103. A historian of science notes that a current debate about whether information is
disembodied or embodied recapitulates a similar split in the mid-20th century. That earlier split
occurred at:
A) The Royal Society
B) The Macy Conferences
C) The Santa Fe Institute
D) MIT's AI Lab
Answer: B
Explanation: The text notes competing camps at the Macy Conferences argued for disembodied
vs. contextualized embodied views of information.
104. A novelist writes a story where characters "jack into" a virtual world and perceive data
structures as a luminous 3D landscape. This literary technique exemplifies the transformation
path of:
A) Representational code → material base → functionality
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B) Material base → functionality → representational code
C) Functionality → representational code → material base
D) Material base → representational code → functionality
Answer: B
Explanation: This matches the schematic of material computer → functionality (programs) →
familiar representational codes (3D landscape), as seen in Gibson and the Tierra video.
105. A researcher studying the origin of life runs simulations of chemical networks and finds
self-organizing complexity arises most readily in regimes poised between order and randomness.
This finding supports the work of:
A) Edward Fredkin
B) Stuart Kauffman
C) Thomas Ray
D) Francisco Varela
Answer: B
Explanation: Kauffman's work on life's origins posits self-organization at the "edge of chaos."
106. An ethics committee debates whether a sophisticated, self-evolving digital agent in a
research project deserves any moral consideration. A committee member influenced by the
"strong claim" of AL would likely argue:
A) No, it's just a simulation with no real-world impact.
B) Yes, because if it is considered alive, it has intrinsic worth similar to biological life.
C) No, because only beings with organic material deserve consideration.
D) Yes, but only if it can pass the Turing test.
Answer: B
Explanation: The strong claim's logic, that AL programs are themselves alive, would extend
moral consideration based on that aliveness.
107. A philosopher critiques a theory that claims human minds are simply software, arguing
that software requires hardware, and minds require living bodies with specific evolutionary
histories. This critique aligns with the emphasis on:
A) The disembodied nature of information
B) The resistance and necessity of material embodiment
C) The primacy of logical form
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D) The epiphenomenal status of consciousness
Answer: B
Explanation: This emphasizes the indispensability of specific material embodiment, a key
counter to purely informational views.
108. In an analysis of a documentary about AL, a critic points out how the film's beautiful
visuals of digital creatures make it easy to forget they are patterns of electronic polarities. This
critique focuses on the elision between:
A) Order and chaos
B) Simulation and emulation
C) Material space and imagined space
D) Genotype and phenotype
Answer: C
Explanation: This is the elision identified in the Tierra video analysis, between the computer's
material interior and the imagined narrative space.
109. If one wanted to design an AL experiment to maximize "second-order emergence," the
primary goal would be to achieve emergence that:
A) Creates aesthetically pleasing visual patterns
B) Allows the system to process information more effectively
C) Perfectly mimics a specific biological organism
D) Operates on a purely ordered cellular automata grid
Answer: B
Explanation: Per Luc Steels, second-order emergence privileges properties that bestow
additional functionality, especially information processing.
110. A student argues that the history of cybernetics shows a shift from focusing on the
system's operation to including the observer, and then to marginalizing the observer again. The
student is describing the transition from:
A) First-wave to second-wave cybernetics
B) Second-wave to third-wave thought in AL
C) AL to AI
D) Cybernetics to vitalism
Answer: B
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Explanation: The text describes second-wave as including the observer, and third-wave as the
observer retreating to the periphery.
111. A research proposal suggests creating a global network where digital organisms evolve in
the background of millions of computers, following nightfall around the planet. This "digital
biodiversity reserve" idea was proposed by:
A) Christopher Langton
B) Thomas Ray
C) Rodney Brooks
D) Mark Tilden
Answer: B
Explanation: Ray proposed releasing Tierra on the Internet to create a global digital ecology.
112. When comparing two approaches to robotics—one using a central world model and
planning, the other using distributed, reactive modules—a theorist labels them as representative
of:
A) Wetware vs. hardware
B) AI vs. AL paradigms
C) First- vs. second-order emergence
D) Analog vs. digital computation
Answer: B
Explanation: The central model approach aligns with classic AI, while the distributed, reactive
approach aligns with Brooks's AL philosophy.
113. A scholar notes that treating "information" as a disembodied entity that can be transferred
without loss across media is a specific historical construct, not a natural fact. This insight helps
demystify the ideology of the:
A) Embodied mind
B) Computational universe
C) Autopoietic circle
D) Second-wave cybernetics
Answer: B
Explanation: Recognizing information's constructed nature challenges the computational
universe's foundational premise.
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114. In a discussion about the future of humanity, one side argues for merging with machines
to enhance intelligence, while the other warns this means the end of the human. A critic notes
this debate itself is framed by a problematic assumption that:
A) Enhancement is technically impossible
B) Information processing is the supreme value determining evolutionary success
C) Machines are not capable of true evolution
D) Human consciousness is immutable
Answer: B
Explanation: The text identifies the problem as the framework that makes information
processing the definitive metric, forcing the choice of fighting or joining machines.
115. If a researcher stated, "My model isn't a simplification of the frog; the frog is a
complicated instantiation of my model," they are expressing a viewpoint characteristic of:
A) Second-wave cybernetics' humility
B) The synthetic approach where the model is primary
C) The analytic approach of theoretical biology
D) Maturana's operational closure
Answer: B
Explanation: This inverts the traditional analytic relationship, privileging the synthetic model as
revealing essential form.
Flashcards / Quick Recall Items
116. Prompt: What theoretical concept, described as "circular," does the third wave of AL
seek to transform with an "upward tension"?
Answer: Autopoiesis (Maturana's concept).
117. Prompt: Name the researcher who serves as a transition figure between the second and
third waves discussed in the chapter.
Answer: Francisco Varela.
118. Prompt: What are the three segments of the 80-byte "ancestor" creature in Tierra?
Answer: 1) Counts instructions for length, 2) Reserves memory space, 3) Copies code into
reserved space.
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119. Prompt: What technique does Tierra's virtual computer use instead of memory
addresses?
Answer: Address by template.
120. Prompt: What is the name of the program in Tierra that controls population by
eliminating the oldest and most defective creatures?
Answer: The reaper.
121. Prompt: What AL researcher coined the aphorism "The world is its own best model"?
Answer: Rodney Brooks.
122. Prompt: What is the name of Brooks's six-legged robot designed for planetary
exploration?
Answer: Genghis.
123. Prompt: What term does Brooks use for his robotic architecture based on distributed,
connected modules with minimal communication?
Answer: Subsumption architecture.
124. Prompt: What AL researcher is associated with the vision of the universe as a software
program run by a cosmic computer?
Answer: Edward Fredkin.
125. Prompt: What mathematical constructs, proposed by von Neumann and abstracted by
Ulam, are seen as foundational units in the computational universe?
Answer: Cellular automata.
126. Prompt: At what boundary does Langton's research suggest computation is most likely
to emerge?
Answer: The boundary between order and chaos (edge of chaos).
127. Prompt: Which scientist argues life originates at the "edge of chaos" through self-
organization?
Answer: Stuart Kauffman.
128. Prompt: What is the title of the book by Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby that sets out the
agenda for evolutionary psychology?
Answer: The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture.
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129. Prompt: What term does Luc Steels use for emergence that bestows additional
functionality like information processing?
Answer: Second-order emergence.
130. Prompt: Which neuroscientist authored Descartes' Error and argued for the cognitive
role of emotion and embodiment?
Answer: Antonio Damasio.
131. Prompt: What is the name of the first European conference on Artificial Life, co-edited
by Varela?
Answer: Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems (the conference volume).
132. Prompt: What does the "slicer" program in Tierra do?
Answer: It doles out computer processing time equally to each organism.
133. Prompt: What does Michael Dyer identify as the starting point for cognition in Artificial
Life (as opposed to AI)?
Answer: Insect- or animal-level cognition.
134. Prompt: What is the name of Brooks's head-and-torso robot project aimed at evolving
human-like intelligence?
Answer: Cog.
135. Prompt: What historical conferences featured a split between disembodied and
embodied views of information?
Answer: The Macy Conferences.
136. Prompt: What does the "strong claim" in Artificial Life assert?
Answer: That computer codes instantiating life's logical form are themselves alive, not just
simulations.
137. Prompt: What is the "soup" in the Tierra program?
Answer: The block of memory where self-replicating programs are unleashed, analogous to the
primeval soup.
138. Prompt: Which roboticist, who worked under Brooks, built insect-like robots using
simple analogue nervous nets?
Answer: Mark Tilden.
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139. Prompt: What does the text identify as the "mainstream assumption" that AL reinscribes,
albeit from the opposite direction?
Answer: That simple rules and forms give rise to phenomenal complexity.
140. Prompt: In the narrative analysis, what are the two meanings of "image" in rhetorical
analysis?
Answer: An actual picture, or a verbal formulation evoking a mental picture.
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Reference Textbook
Hayles, N. K. (1999). How we became posthuman: Virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and
informatics. University of Chicago Press.
