Pattern over presence

Up late today reading chapter 2 of Katherine Hayles' How We Became Posthuman. One quote came up that I find interesting in this whole "is the digital real or better?" question.

"The contrast between the body's limitations and cyberspace's power highlights the advantages of pattern over presence. As long as the pattern endures, one has attained a kind of immortality…Such views are authorized by cultural conditions that make physicality seem a better state to be from than to inhabit…A cyberspace body, like a cyberspace landscape, is immune to blight and corruption" (Hayles, 1999, p.36).

Not applicable to the class that I'm going to be presenting in on Tuesday, as it isn't part of the theme of the class. But this is going to be useful for the paper I'm writing for the class which I hope to present at the CASCA annual conference in May. The paper is entitled "Digital dreams & cyborg selves: Fear as a constituent force in online colonization".