Albert Borgmann and N. Katherine Hayles interview/dialogue

Hayles: In my view, machines are "real things," so I don't see an engagement with machines as in any way antithetical to contemporary reality. I do think it is important not to elide the very real differences that exist between humans and machines, especially the different embodiments that humans and machines have. Certainly I think that Albert is correct in insisting that virtual reality will never displace the three-dimensional world in which our perceptual systems evolved; the richness, diversity, and spontaneity of this immensely complex environment makes even the most sophisticated computer simulation look like a stick world by comparison. Where I differ, perhaps, is in seeing the situation not as a dichotomy between the real and virtual but rather as space in which the natural and the artificial are increasing entwined. I foresee a proliferation of what Bruno Latour calls "quasi-objects," hybrid objects produced by a collaboration between nature and culture--genetically engineered plants and animals, humans who have had gene thereapy, humans with cybernetic implants and explants, intelligent agent systems with evolutionary programs who have evolved to the point where they can converse in a convincing fashion with humans, and so forth.