Abstract
This paper concerns how digitizing biological resources enables disentangling information technologies from biological bodies and, thus, from response-abilities among creatures from which they are derived. Extracting (digital) information from (biological) bodies makes it possible to stabilize, freeze, circulate, and control that information independently from creaturely activities—multiplying, not subtracting from the originating material. Such extractions tend to attenuate human interdependencies with other creatures even while expanding the scope of their utility as resources, to the effect of limiting those who have a stake in their development to humans alone. Where conventional natural resource extraction does violence to places and those interdependent with them, digital resource extractions may instead do violence to human capacities to recognize and act on multispecies interdependencies. Here, I argue that choosing to realize connections among organisms and organismal resources makes it possible to envision how creatures may be stakeholders in their own development, with joined ethical and epistemic consequences. I trace that possibility through a case study of the essential laboratory yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae via the physical metaphor of snowflake yeast, an S. cerevisiae variant that maintains multicellular connections as it reproduces.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
