1 Posthumanism and the Cosmopolitics of ‚Nano‘ Prof. Michael Schillmeier, PhD Schumpeter Fellow (VolkswagenStfitung) Exeter University & LMU Munich

Controversies / Publics Assemble actors jointly affected by a problem for which no settlement is available The ‚Cosmos‘ is not about a homogeneous, given world, and it has no privileged representative (human or nonhuman) that speaks in its name  The ‚Cosmos‘ is that which has to be composed 2

Controversies / Publics Deal with and produce uncertainties Unfold a space of ‚risk taking‘, and ‚ethical experimentation‘ (Stengers 2011a) Multiply the world create opportunities to generate novel forms of awareness of the problems and situations that mobilize us (dto.) Create new obligations and values 3

Contested Futures of ‚Nano‘ – The Drexler/Smalley Controversy Molecular Manufacturing K. Eric Drexler (1990) Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, New York: Anchor Books R. Feynman (1959) ‚There’s plenty of room at the bottom: An invitation to enter a new field of physics’  ‚Bottom up Technologies‘: Nano-scaled self-assembling, self-replicating nano- machines  ‚With nature beyond nature‘ (A. Nordmann) (the engineer‘s dream, self- replicating and self-controlling systems, sustainable technologies) 4

„In short, replicating assemblers will copy themselves by the ton, then make other products such as computers, rocket engines, chairs, and so forth. They will make dissassemblers able to break down rock to supply raw material. They will make solar collectors to supply energy. [..] Assemblers will be able to make virtually anything from common materials without labor, replacing smoking factories with systems as clean as forests. (Drexler 1990: 63) „Arranged one way, atoms make up soil, air and water; arranged another, they make up ripe strawberries. Arranged one way they make up homes and fresh air; arranged another they make up ash and smoke. (Drexler 1990: 3) 5

Drexler’s narrative offers Theory of relationships of smallest, stable basic units (atoms) which authorizes global, practical applications It allows Drexler, the engineer, to imagine a multiplicity of nano- engineered futures, including nanomedical futures (‚Engines of Healing‘). 6

Cell repair machines will bring a fundamental breakthrough: they will free medicine from reliance on self repair as the only path of healing. (Drexler 1990: 106) The simplest medical application of nanomachines will involve not repair but selective destruction. Cancer provides one example; infectious disease provide another. (Drexler 1990: 109) 7

Richard. E. Smalley (2001) „Of Chemistry Love and Nanobots“ (drawing on Bill Joy’s ‘Why the futures doesn’t need us?’) Atoms are too ‘sticky’ and nanoscale objects are highly affective beings Their potential for composing relations, i.e. their social potential is too high.  Molecular machines will not work, since they cannot be manipulated atom by atom, molecule by molecule without having uncontrollable effetcs Nano-Space is too small for nano-assemblers. Difficulty to separate the manipulating atomic device from the atoms to be manipulated and surrounding atoms Difficulty to control the chemical reactions between manipulator/manipulated and their environment. Ribosomes (which for Drexler are natural nanomachines) need a specific ‘third element’ for translation: water. 8

When a boy and a girl fall in love, it is often said, that the chemistry between them is good. This common use of the word „chemistry― in human relations comes close to the subtlety of what actually happens in the more mundane coupling of molecules. In a chemical reaction between two “consenting” molecules, bonds form between some of the atoms in what is usually a complex dance involving motion in multiple dimensions.Not just any two molecules will react. (Smalley 2001: 76) Chemistry is subtle indeed. You don't make a girl and a boy fall in love by pushing them together. (…) Like the dance of love, chemistry is a waltz with its own step-slide-step in three quarter time. Wishing that a waltz were a merengue—or that we could set down each atom in just the right place—doesn’t make it so.(Smalley 2001: 77) 9

Smalley, the chemist, draws attention to the chemical activities, processes and rhythms that complicate the idea of mechanistic relationships between smallest units (e.g. chemical reaction cycles, error rates, speed and style of operation, thermo-dynamic efficiencies etc.) on the context-, material- and scalespecific processes of emerging relations and their effects. 10

The Current Nano Future Vision‘s à la Drexler are part of worldwide popularisation of ‚Nano‘ and related forms of critique Nano-Research faces the complexities of thinking with the ‚nano- situation‘ and its emerging relations and unknown effects There is insufficient knowledge and data concerning nanoparticles characterisation, their detection and measurement, the fate (and especially the persistence) of nanoparticles in humans and in the environment, and all aspects of toxicology and environmental toxicology related to nanoparticles, to allow for satisfactory risk assessments for humans and ecosystems to be performed. (nanowerk.com) 11

Much Food for Controvesies The Cosmos of Nano remains to be composed! 12