Beginning to Live Poetically in a World of Near-Cognitive Organisations

ABSTRACT: The 20th century saw extraordinary developments in the related fields of mathematical logic, computer science and philosophy. Gottlob Frege, who introduced the highly successful system of Predicate Calculus and a workable notion of mathematical proof, believed his Predicate Calculus to be an arithmetical language of concepts and pure thought. Martin Heidegger developed grave reservations about the pervasiveness of Frege’s method in the world, believing that it inexorably leads to a bleeding out of meaning from human activities and a diminished understanding of the poetical complexity of the human being. He coined the phrase “technicity” to describe the culture of our modern world which attempts to objectify everything in it and manipulate it logistically. Although Heidegger believed that “only a God can save us”, we will be focusing here on efforts to employ theatricality to address the deadening influences of the tools of modern technology on the poetical possibilities of the modern human being.