http://mindhacks.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/ Neuroscience and psychology news and views. Sun, 19 May 2013 06:21:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://mindhacks.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/#comment-6660 Wed, 21 May 2008 13:35:17 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/#comment-6660 Lindsy Van Gelder wrote that? Last I heard, she was writing for a women’s fashion magazine called “Allure.” But I once knew her through online correspondence (yes, I think it was Compuserve we were all using back then!) and she certainly came through as a very strong feminist… Although now, hearing about this interesting book, one wonders if she is/was a woman, at all… ?
This whole question of identity is extremely intriguing, and I see you followed up with something about MPD/DID. I am a psychologist who once worked on the hospital wards where all of this fluidity with respect to “personality” and “identity” was, quite frankly, encouraged by overly credulous groups of mental health practitioners. It was all very disturbing, and many patients (nearly all women) and their families were badly hurt by this phenomenon. A book I HIGHLY recommend about all of this is “Rewriting the Soul,” by Ian Hacking.

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/#comment-6659 Wed, 21 May 2008 10:49:30 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/#comment-6659 I remember coming across the case of the ‘electronic lover’ in a technology studies class, except our lecturer presented it to us as the “Case of the Cross-Dressing Psychiatrist”.
We were given this particular text, taken from Allucquere Rosanne Stone’s book ‘The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age’. Here’s the GoogleBooks link: http://tinyurl.com/47fclt

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/#comment-6658 Tue, 20 May 2008 22:18:21 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/#comment-6658 That url didn’t seem to come through properly in the last message.
http://tinyurl.com/3cqesu

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/#comment-6657 Tue, 20 May 2008 22:14:14 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/the-strange-case-of-the-electronic-lover/#comment-6657 There is another relatively famous case of gender-bending internet lover impersonation involving (peripherally) the author Harlan Ellison. Here is one article on it, there are others and there are also the blog entries of the hoaxee and video of the hoaxer getting confronted by the hoaxee’s supporters. Fascinating and disturbing. Very well worth the read.
http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/the-life-and-death-of-jesse-james/17427/?page=1

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