Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Human Nature (Option 3)
Human Nature (Option 3)
Marcuse's beliefs about the purpose of technology are valid because I believe that is one of the main purposes of technology that is to pacify us humans most notably through forms of entertainment. That is the medium by which we are most pacified. Just look at someone playing their favorite video game or watching their favorite TV show. They are locked on to the TV or sometimes computer screen in a deeply pacified state. It is my belief that someone reading a book is pacified but to a lesser extent. This shows that the more advanced technology, the video game, pacifies someone more than a book does. This trend of increased pacification will continue until total pacification will occur whether or not we welcome it. The earliest ultimate form of pacification would be a merger of technology with humans in the form of an implant to play some form of virtual reality video game. This, to me, is the beginning of the end of technology mentioned by Marcuse. It is at this point that man ceases to become man alone and now is a cyborg that will exist in some sort of virtual reality realm like the holodeck of Star Trek. I think the actual end of technology will come when the artificial part of humans becomes dominant and or the natural part is no longer needed for decision making therefore pacifying the human component of the cyborg. The “logos of techics” translate roughly to “words of technique” which is the Greek words for technology; change the paradigm that always existed between men and nature.
The first sentence of (b) is a striking one to me because it makes me wonder if there is joy or happiness in nature. I have come to the conclusion that there is none and that joy and happiness are purely human things. When an animal catches its prey it’s not happy that it has dinner, it is merely surviving. The animal is functioning based only on its instincts. Nature is ruthless. Humans on the other hand are different, they have joy and happiness which, according to Marcuse is unnatural and therefore reduces nature to a passive state. Marcuse says that some societies place black races inferior to white, but “civilization produces the means to free nature from its own brutality, by virtue of the power of reason” That certainly is the case here in most developed countries where equal value is placed on both races.
The “nature” Marcuse is getting at isn’t nature like forest and wild animal nature, but rather human nature. Human nature is being “freed from its own brutality by the transforming power of reason.” Therefore human nature and its barbarity is being pacified and the reasoning power that causes it is the “technics” or technology.
Lyotards phrase “-technology wasn’t invented by us humans. Rather the other way around.”(12) tells us that we ourselves evolve to fit the role that technology now ascribes to us. For instance when a new technology is invented say for instance the cell phone—we incorporate it into our lives and evolve to use it and depend on it. When it is removed from us we cannot fathom our lives without it, so in a way we are pacified by it even though it also enables us to do things with it than we couldn’t have done without it. Take for instance when our cell phone networks have hiccups and your phone doesn’t work for 20 minutes or so. I surely get frustrated and anxious because I feel out of sync with the world it seems.
Fredrick Winslow Taylor tries to combat human nature with his Principles of Scientific Management. Every move used to complete a task being timed, recorded, and averaged is a form of technology. Scientific study and adjustments of those moves would seem to go against ones nature because those are moves you don’t think about you just do them. If you are suddenly forced to change how you do something you then have to constantly think about the move you are making and the next move you must make and so on. This would seem to go against human nature, the unplanned movements you make to complete a task is in your human nature, altering that would cause you to go against your nature. Imagine if someone told you that you were holding a pen wrong. Holding a pen has been something you have done since you were very little and if you were suddenly forced to change how you held a pen it would go against your nature. Scientific management’s goal is to pacify human nature in the workplace by eliminating loafing and what he deems unnecessary movements.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep human nature and nature period is drastically changed. One of the concepts most basic to human nature—eating has been drastically altered. In the book no human would dare think of eating any animal for fear of being labeled an android because androids have little empathy for animals. Almost every human alive today would fail the empathy test if it were administered to them because almost everyone thinks fur coats and leather seats are commonplace. In a sense our nature is being pacified because all humans would have to eat some substitute for meat or protein, which is unnatural because it is natural for humans to eat meat.
Bill Joy’s essay Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us? talks about human natures uncontrollable quest for the acquisition of knowledge and how it may come to destroy us. My favorite part of the essay is a quote from Robert Oppenheimer “It is not possible to be a scientist unless you believe that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of intrinsic value to humanity, and that you are using it to help in the spread of knowledge and are willing to take the consequences” (13). The power that comes with the gathering of knowledge is what human nature yearns for. People argue that when a scientist is searching for something they do it not to better humanity’s pool of knowledge but rather for the power, money, and maybe fame that goes with a brilliant discovery. In his essay Joy argues for control of scientific research endeavors to prevent technology from becoming too powerful and destroying mankind. It would go against a scientist’s human nature to stop his or her work because their work may have become too dangerous. They would be blinded by their ambitions for money and fame if they were to come up with a breakthrough, because of this a non –biased (meaning not influenced by the same type of driving nature the scientist has) party must become involved to limit the progress so its not to become destructive to man and destroy human nature itself.
In summary Marcuse’s views about the “pacified existence” of nature are spot on in my opinion. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep human nature becomes pacified through changing social conditions as a result of a war they must adapt not only their diet but their culture to reflect the changing natural conditions. As a result they have moved away from what was traditionally thought of to be human nature to a new form of human nature. Although Marcuse’s ideas were somewhat difficult to understand at first I now think I have a firm grasp on what he means by “pacified existence.”
Works Cited
http://mw1.m-w.com/dictionary/pacify
http://www.phoneplusmag.com/articles/825/78h31852964376.html
Dick, Philip K. Blade Runner : Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Westminster: Del Rey, 1990.
Joy, Bill. "Why the Future doesn't need us." Aug. 2004. 15 Oct. 2008
Lyotard, Jean F. "Can Thought go on without a Body?" The Inhuman : Reflections on Time. By Jean-Francois Lyotard. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington. New York: Stanford UP, 1992.
Taylor, Frederick. Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2006.
Human nature and technology
A basic idea is that it is human nature to make things as easy as possible. That is how the technology of today becomes a part of how it would be considered human nature. We create machines that take the work of men. We create vehicles to get to places quicker easier. Even Clifford in The House of Seven Gables who doesn’t like new technologies likes the idea of the railroad as it makes life simpler and thinks it will change human nature. He states “this admirable invention of the railroad — with the vast and inevitable improvements to be looked for, both as to speed and convenience — is destined to do away with those stale ideas of home and fireside, and substitute something better” (Hawthorne, 180). He says this new technology will change how humans are. Instead of staying at home it will become human nature to venture out and visit far way places as it will be quicker and far more convenient than before. The world can become connected due to inventions like the railroad and telegraph.
We can even trace the idea of technology to the brain. The evolution of brain to that of a human has made as a perfect medium for complicated thinking that is involved with the creation and using of technologies. Since the earliest organisms with brains the relative size has increased and the complexity has also increased. This increase is due to natural selection the favors complex thinking. V. Turchin describes this idea by stating:
Human intelligence, as distinct from the intelligence of non-human animals, results from a metasystem transition that allows the organism to control the formation of associations of mental representations, producing imagination, language, goal setting, humor, arts and sciences (Turchin).
Since language is a technology itself and since it is rooted to the function of the brain its clear that technology is a part of human nature. This brain is also an instance where the body is a technology. The brain controls the rest of the body by extremely complex mechanisms with different techniques. Although it occurs naturally the body is extremely complex technology that rivals many of the man-made machines.
There has been a trend of the creation of more and more technologically in a seemingly exponential rate since humans first evolved. This has gotten to a point where humans rely on the technology and couldn’t live without it. We couldn’t even get basic needs such as water and food without the use of complicated technologies. It of course is technology that is to blame for why we couldn’t survive without it. Pollution has led to unsafe water and the creation of cities and such have decreased the amount of wild food sources. We’ve gotten ourselves into a whole that is virtually impossible to get out of.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick the idea of human reliance on technology has come to an extreme. The natural world is completely demolished where all that’s left is a dust and a few animals that are almost sacred. The people wouldn’t even dream of killing one of the animals for food so it must come from some other unnatural source. This attitude is due to the limited natural resources due to the mass technological changes. You could even say human nature has changed to be repulsed by the killing an animal. This is quite different from how the majority of people feel today. Early humans absolutely required meat from animals to survive so the idea of being disgusted by the idea of eating them would be unfathomable. In the scene where Rick is testing Rachel he concludes that she is android because she has no reaction to be served a boiled dog stuffed with rice. This slight reaction to such a thing has now become part of what all humans feel and thus is a change to human nature.
In the book technology has grown so much that it has even become a part of the human. The mood organ is a creation that controls what the people in the feel. The beginning of the text goes through a scenario with Rick and his wife discussing this mood organ and how his wife wants to set it so she’s depressed for six hours of the day. It can control things like the want to wake up, watch TV, etc. This idea is quite profound to someone who’s never heard of such a thing. Our human nature is for our feelings to come from our brain. We can’t use technology to control how we feel, unless of course you count drugs like antidepressants that alter your feelings. The characters in the book are living in a world with completely fabricated emotions. This new trait of humans is just another thing added to the human nature in the novel.
The androids in the novel are seen as a threat to humans and must be demolished. We never know why they are a threat, but the whole book focuses on killing them. The androids are in a sense just human with a robotic brain. The only way you can tell the difference between is to test their bone marrow or do an apathy test which isn’t really conclusive. Although they aren’t physically much different from humans their nature and thinking is much different from ours which is why having them around can be seen as a threat to human nature.
With the idea of things like a nuclear war as seen in the novel you wonder if technology not only threats human nature but human existence as well. The technologies they had before the war made life sustainable, but if a nuclear war were to occur now in the real world I fear that we would not be able to cope and the world could come to an end. So in a way one can say that technology like nuclear weapons threat human existence but I would say that’s not the case. As the saying goes “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” It is the humans that are creating the technology so it would be humans that are a threat to humanity. The technology isn’t the threat it’s the people who create and utilize it.
Bill Joy’s article “Why the future doesn’t need us” argues that technology can have the capability to threaten human nature and humanity as a whole as opposed to it simply being humans. He mentions that machines could get to a point that they can make there own decisions. He even makes that bold statement “I many be working to create tools which will enable the construction of the technology that may replace our species” (Joy, 7). As a major player in the creation of computers his work could potentially lead to supercomputers that are intelligent. When it gets to that point it is no longer in are hands whether or these intelligent computers or robots decide to try to wipe us out. We could of course try to stop it but that may not be possible. If that happens there would be no more human nature as there would be no more humans.
It’s clear that technology and human nature are deeply linked. The fact that we can create and pass down technology is part of what makes us human. Technology has significantly grown over time and we now rely on it which makes the connection even stronger. Since human nature can be defined as our traits in a basic sense it’s easy to see how technology can affect our human nature. The changing of the world through technological change can change how we view things which ultimately changes our human nature. Although some see technology as a threat it’s the humans that create the technology that decide how far to take it.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. New York: Ballantine Books, 1968.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of Seven Gables. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1851.
"Human nature." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2008. Merriam-Webster Online. 15 October 2008.
Joy, Bill. Why the future doesn't need us. 1993. 8 September 2008
Turchin, V. Human Thinking. 24 October 1997. 15 October 2008
Human Nature and Survival (Option 2)
Before I get started on this idea of human nature, let me first do some housekeeping. When I talk about technology, I want you, the reader, to think about not only the modern concept of technology-that is powered machinery, but also take into account the Greek root of the word technology, techne’, that roughly means technique (Johns). Think of the technique of science and how it has evolved as well as how it parallels the development of technology.
Let us take a step back in time to pre-modern religion times, the age of the ancient Greek philosophers. People still asked questions such as those set forth in the first paragraph and they were often answered by Aristotelian answers. Take for example a question such as where do we stand in the universe. Well, an Aristotelian would reply that we are on a stationary Earth located in the center of the universe. The sun, moon and all of the wanderers (we now know these as planets) revolve around the Earth in perfect, uniform circular motion on crystalline spheres made out of aether. But, how does everything move you may ask? Aristotelians believed there was an eternal mover, an angel sent from the deity, that kept the outer most sphere, that of the stars and heavens, moving and thus kept all of the interior spheres moving as well.
Looking back and studying the Aristotelians, it is hard to say that they got it right, but when you considered their technique of science, they did the best that they could. Aristotelian natural philosophy later evolved into what we now know as modern day science. Before the evolution occurred, Aristotelians did not think that experiments could answer questions. They believed that the way to discover the cosmos and all other aspects of life was through the art of reasoning and argument. Nowhere was there room for mathematics in the natural philosophies (Palmieri).
As we approach the Scientific Revolution we witness a drastic change in the way we ask and answer the questions set forth in the first paragraph. No longer are we studying and enhancing natural philosophy through reason and arguments. We are looking more towards observation and experimentation to study the natural world and answer the questions of where did we come from and how did we get here. Galileo was a major driving force. He took the already invented telescope, enhanced the lenses so that the magnification increased from about 6x to roughly 30x and aimed it at the sky. He discovered that the moon was not a perfect ethereal sphere, but it had mountains and craters like Earth. He discovered Jupiter had four moons orbiting it. He discovered the phases of Venus (Galilei). All of these discoveries challenged the major religious doctrines of the day.
Ever since the dawn of modern man we have been asking these questions that we will never find the answers to, no matter what religion or method of science we incorporate. It is these answerless questions that Lyotard says we must stop asking. There is no point to asking these questions because as we talk the sun is getting older (Lyotard 8). The sun is halfway through its lifetime. In 4.5 billion years the sun will expand past the orbit of the earth and nova, destroying everything for light years. But, we cannot just quit asking these questions. It is against the human nature. We want to know everything. We want to one-up the generation before us. It is natural competition amongst animals.
We run into trouble when we start questioning things at limits. Sure we have science that has proven what had happened to the millionth of a second after the big bang. But what happened before the big bang? Or we know how the sun will die, but what will happen to us after the sun dies? In all my studies of science I have not once learned of someone’s opinion of what will happen to humans after the sun dies. Most of them do not think we will even make it. They have the idea similar to that of Bill Joy in his article, Why the future doesn’t need us. Joy says, “Our most powerful 21st-century technologies – robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech – are threatening to make humans an endangered species (Joy).” However, it is these technologies that make it possible to answer some of the answerless questions. It is like a double-edged sword. Humans use technology for their own advancement but it could be technology that ultimately leads to their demise before the sun’s death.
I keep coming back to when the sun dies. What is the importance of this? It is important because “with the sun’s death your insoluble questions will be done with too (Lyotard 8).” When the sun explodes, there will be no more searching for why are we here. There will be no more technology. We won’t be using technology to help us understand our religions. When the sun explodes “…there won’t be a thought to know that its death took place (Lyotard 9).”
So it is human nature to ask questions. But what is going to happen to human nature when the sun explodes. Will it vanish like the rest of our known solar system? Maybe, it is also human nature to survive, just like any animal. I know humans will not go down without a fight. This animalistic tendency is hard wired into our DNA. On the skin it is human’s nature to ask questions, but underneath the skin there is more to it. It is also human nature to survive through any means possible. In fact we are creating this technology to answer the so-called answerless questions. We invent technology to cure polio, HIV, and other ailments to help us survive. So what if, subconsciously we are inventing this technology to get closer to a way of surviving the sun’s nova? That could be our actual goal.
The ancient Greeks and civilizations before them started us on this ultimate journey. The technique of creating this technology or knowledge about the world has changed and evolved but the ultimate goal has not. How are we going to survive this nova? It is as uncertain as a weatherman predicting the weather two weeks in advance. No one really knows what will happen. What I do know is that we are getting somewhere. We are asking questions of light and electrons at the quantum level. Electrons can either be seen as a wave or a particle otherwise known as a photon. Take for example; we measure an electron as a photon, why is it then that it will not show evidence of it being a wave anymore? Some may think this is a pointless question now, but remember that before you could run, you first had to learn how to walk. This could be the learning how to walk stage in developing a technology that will enable us to travel close to or as fast as the speed of light. To me, that is the only feasible way of surviving the sun’s explosion. The explosion will be so powerful that it will break apart molecules and even atoms! There is no chance of creating a substance or hardware device that will house a software system comparable to that of the computing power of the human brain that will be able to survive the nova, so we must run. We must run fast.
Today it is understood that nothing can go faster then the speed of light. Also, today no mode of transportation even scratches the surface of coming close to the speed of light. So if we can understand the properties of electrons and light, we might be able to conceive a machine that will enable us to travel at or near the speed of light to escape the explosion and continue the human nature of survival.
I want to get back to the idea of a double-edged sword. Sure this technology we are creating has unlimited potential to do amazing things, but it also has the unlimited potential to annihilate us before we reach our ultimate goal of surviving the nova and beyond. Scientists in France and Switzerland have built the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Its goal is to smash protons together at 99.999999% of the speed of light (LHC). Some physicists argue that it can inevitably create a black hole that will swallow the earth and everything around us (Large). This is just one way of technology leading to the end of humans and human thought. There is always the potential for a nuclear war or some genetically engineered disease that can eliminate humans on earth.
Ultimately, it is human nature to ask questions. It is human nature to survive at any means possible. Although we may not actually think it, subconsciously as a species we know we are going to die. We know that there will be a time when there will be no human beings left. There will be no human thought left. But this idea goes against our nature. We then end up asking questions to try to formulate answers and each answer is just another stepping stone to our ultimate goal of surviving the nova and beyond.
Works Cited
Galilei, Galileo. “Sidereus Nuncius or the Sidereal Messenger.” Trans. By Albert Van Heldon. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Johns, Dr. Adam. “Narrative and Technology Syllabus.” [photocopy].
Joy, Bill. “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.”
"Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt," CNN 10 Sep 2008. 13 Oct 2008
"LHC Machine Outreach." LHC Machine Outreach. 13 Oct 2008
Lyotard, Jean Francois. “Can Thought Go On Without a Body?” [photocopy]
Palmieri, Paolo. "Galileo 6.1." Gallieo and the Creation of Modern Science, University of Pittsburgh. Cathedral of Learning 213, Pittsburgh. October 9, 2008.
Technology alters Human Nature (option 2
I first wanted to define what I think human nature is and what technology is to me. Human Nature, according to Locke, we are born with a blank slate and through perception and sensation we learn different things (Kemerling 2). I feel as though human nature is what we learn from experience. If we never experienced anything we would not be with human nature. This makes me think of a movie I watched in Psychology 0100 freshman year. A girl was caged up until she was a teenager. She never walked or was social with anyone but maybe her parents. When they found her she couldn’t walk right and she couldn’t talk. They tried to use flash cards and different techniques to have her be a normal person but it was a lot of work. This is what I feel is human nature – having perception and sensation of the world around us.
Technology on the other hand is, as we said in class, the study of technique. I found a definition online that says “A specific definition for the word "technology" is difficult to determine, because "technology" can refer to material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware or utensils, but can also encompass broader themes, including systems, methods of organization, and techniques(What is technology? 1)”. Lyotard tells us that “technology wasn’t invented by us humans. Rather the other way around. As anthropologists and biologists admit, even the simplest life forms, infusoria are already technical devices. Any material system is technological if it filters information useful to its survival, if it memorizes and processes that information and makes inferences… (Lyotard 12)”. I feel as though technology is what Lyotard is saying – human nature is technology as a way of organizing our perceptions and sensations.
Technology is a part of human nature is a broad sense, but I feel that technology could surpass human nature. Joy warns us that our own voluntary actions can be danger to us (Joy 11). Could it just be our human nature of learning that is the danger? Learning is how we become who we are and how we are all different. Our knowledge wants to know more about our past and future. I think that knowledge in turn creates human nature. I also think that we use technology to gain knowledge. If we had a graph of human nature and technology, I think that it would be at an exponential rate until one day the technology passes our human nature. Closer and closer one day that technology could surpass human nature.
For example, in “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?” we find no one can tell any more between the technology we created and the human nature we used to have. I think that at this point there are certain moments that we can see the human nature of perception shine through the technology. For instance when Rick said that Luba had a wonderful voice and was good for society he had a split instance of being a real human with sensation and perception (Dick 120). I feel as though if that world they lived in kept going that technology would over take everything. Our human nature was being diminished when they created things like robots or the memory destroyer that we can not even tell the difference from human nature and technology. As said before I think that technology can over take human nature at some point if it keeps going.
Lyotard’s task in his essay is how to make thought without a body possible (Lyotard 13). I think that this simple concept from Lyotard concerns how technology could surpass human nature. I feel that the only way to go about the task he proposes in his essay is with technology. This would surpass human nature because our thought really would be technology. He also says that this way of simulating conditions of life is used today in things like genetics and tissue synthesis (Lyotard 12). That means that technology is getting closer to surpassing our human nature.
I think technology alters and threatens human nature. It alters us because now we grow up with computers and knowledge at our fingers. In times before us knowledge was harder to find. We have become lazy in this aspect. If we hear that we have to go to the library to research because we can not use the internet we groan. Why should I go do that when I have all the knowledge at my fingertips? The sensation and perception part is becoming easier and easier to gain. I think that can alter human nature of experiencing different things for our self. Technology to me obviously threatens human nature and can destroy it. Robots and/or nuclear war, just like in Androids, can over take us. In my synopsis before I said that technology is a part of human nature. Then, human nature threatens human nature.
In “Blade Runner”, technology alters human nature. At the very beginning of the novel they use the mood organ (Dick 12). This all in all definitely alters human nature. Personality is what makes us human and to take it all away to change your mood on how you want changes the real person. Personality is a big part of human nature. Our experience can make our personality and if we do not even have our real personality that alters our human nature. World War Terminus also alters human nature. Before they did not think animals were sacred but now they do (Dick 6). This alters our empathy towards things that are close to human nature. Anything that is close to how it was before people become obsessed with. Perhaps that means that people don’t want technology to alter their human nature.
Another example could be in “The House of the Seven Gables”. Holgrave used a new form of pictures and paintings when he was at the house. Although he sounded smart, the author says that he really does not know what he is talking about and is dumb (Hawthorne 211). This could perhaps show that technology is making us not as intelligent as we could be and is altering human nature. Another example that it can alter human perception is whenever Holgrave took a real picture of the judge instead of a portrait. He looked different and not as happy as he normally would have in a painting or in real life (Hawthorne 64). This alters the way we look at people and how we perceive the world around us. Through Holgrave’s photography the world looked different to people and ultimately alters human nature.
Human nature can also be threatened by technology. Bill Joy quotes a man named Freeman Dyson saying that machines are irresistible and that there is a glitter to nuclear weapons (Joy 13). If man thinks that technology is irresistible who’s to say that they could ultimately threaten people because of their questions. Their human nature could also threaten life. The human nature to know why things are the way they are through technology. I think that is a consequence of our truth seeking (Joy 15). I think life is threatened in all of the passages I have talked about. In Hawthorne technology threatens the Pyncheons because Clifford is scared of the future and what it might hold. Although they are threatened I think the future is better for Clifford. In “Blade Runner” the whole book is threatened by technology. Rick has to kill robots so that human nature can be protected. In Lyotard he is trying to find a solution for us because we are threatened by technology to live after technology destroys us.
Ultimately I think that technology alters and threatens us while surpassing us at the same time. Human nature is sensation and perception of the world around us. Technology, on the other hand, is storing and organizing this information in our systems. Technology could surpass us in time just like it did in several examples. In “Blade Runner” and in Lyotard we find that this can be true by the future. Technology also can alter human nature. It alters our learning process and our personality. Technology can also threaten us by learning more and more about us and finally threatening our human nature. So like the quote at the beginning of my essay, one day technology can overcome human nature.
Work Cited
Dick, Philip K. Blade Runner : Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Westminster: Del Rey, 1990.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of the Seven Gables. Minneapolis: Dover Publications, Incorporated, 2003.
Joy, Bill. "Why the Future doesn't need us." Aug. 2004. 15 Oct. 2008
Kemerling, Garth. "John Locke." Philosophy Pages. Aug. 2006. Britannica. 15 Oct. 2008
Lyotard, Jean F. "Can Thought go on without a Body?" The Inhuman : Reflections on Time. By Jean-Francois Lyotard. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington. New York: Stanford UP, 1992.
"What is Technology?" 2008. EXxtenison. 15 Oct. 2008
Midterm: Human Nature and Technology (Options 2)
Before attempting to understand the relationship between technology and human nature, one must look closer at the definition of human nature. According to an article on Wikipedia, human nature is the range of human behavior that is believed to be normal and/or invariant over long periods of time and across very different cultural contexts.” Also, according to John Locke’s philosophy of empiricism, human nature is tabula rasa, or in simpler terms, a blank slate without rules. If one is to adhere to these definitions of human nature, it would be conclusive to argue that human nature and technology are both related to each other, but in different ways. In one sense, it can be argued that technology and its implications will have an impact on what could be considered “normal” human behavior. But according to Locke’s view, human nature begins with no rules and therefore, technology would essentially create what is human nature.
From the beginning and continuing into the present, technology has always been created so as to make human existence simpler and easier, specifically against the forces of nature. Most often people perceive technology as a cell phone or a computer. Although these are both a part of technology, they do not demonstrate the true purpose of technology, which is, to ensure a greater chance of survival, be it from the forces of nature or shear boredom. One of the earliest weapons, the first spear, made by man not only enabled him to hunt and feed his family but also protect them. Eventually as technology and society progressed, the need for technology became a necessity for greater comfort as opposed to survival against nature.
Although technology is a derivation of human creation, it’s interesting to see that human nature is essentially altered and possibly defined by the implications of technology in human lifestyle. As humans are social animals, much of our greatest innovations have resulted as a need to communicate with others in the most efficient and time-saving manner. In retrospect to the 19th century, it is more common today than in the past for those who live in technological societies to communicate with an exponentially higher number of people and with greater ease. In fact, many would consider the unavailability of cell phones and internet to be a major drawback and essentially a major inconvenience. However, there are many parts of the world where this lack of communication via cell phones and internet would only be considered trivial, mainly due to never becoming acquainted with its comforts.
In Philip K. Dick’s, Blade Runner, the world that was introduced to the audience was much more heavily based on technology than the one today. There were several key elements about human nature that was brought forth in the book that help truly understand the concept of human nature. The imperative point the book makes is how dependent the human society became on technology. This point was most clearly demonstrated by the creation of androids. Humans essentially required technology to create such elaborate machines to behave like humans themselves. As discussed in class, it was convincing the purpose for machines to both look and act like humans conveyed a certain need for humans to feel both in control of and association with other human beings. Beyond this, it exemplified the true fragility of human nature. Even as intelligent as humans are, beyond the need for survival, technology’s ultimate fate is to make human lifestyle more comfortable, even at the expense of essentially lessening the need for other real human being with simple technical replacements.
Conclusively, technology is not a direct part of human nature but it has many influences that may both define or alter human nature. As seen in Blade Runner, humans become dependant on technology where, beyond the its essential need for survival, it becomes a need for compatibility and association with other humans. As previously discussed, humans are social animals that require interactions with other social beings. As shown, most of our technological advances, beyond the need for survival and comfort, were for communication so as to interact more with other humans, or social beings. In Blade Runner, technology eventually came to replace the ultimate need to interact with other humans with the creation of androids, a synthetic social animal.
Bibliography
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Updated 14 October 2008, 10:55 UTC. Encyclopedia on-line. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature. Internet. Retrieved 14 October 2004.
Midterm - Human Nature Vs. Technology
Throughout the first half of our class, we saw many different views of how people perceive the effect of technology on nature and vice versa. A writer like Thoreau proclaims that, “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us” (Joy 10). Many of the writers we have focused on agree with this point of view, showing technology as a driving force to the demise of nature. The work in which this is most evident is Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I believe the line between technology and actual human nature is being blurred so much that it has become hard to differentiate between the two.
In real life and in many of the stories we have read, people are completely dependent upon technology. Dick’s book opens up with Iran and Rick Deckard using their mood organ to program their mood for the rest of the day. We see Iran using the organ to program a six hour depression for herself while her husband is away at work. Through this passage in the book, Dick shows that people, incapable of making genuine feelings, are forced to use a machine. This mood organ also allows the people using it to share their feelings with others. The machine replaces a natural, human event with technology, and instead of sharing feelings with people verbally, they just use the mood organ to transfer feelings. Another part of technology that the colonists in Dick’s book cannot live without is the android itself. This is seen when everyone who migrates to Mars gets their own personal android for free. The technology is not just a nice invention that could make something a little easier, but a necessity for everyday life. In the world of 2021, technology is not just part of human nature, it is human nature.
Dick continues to play with technology and human nature by not distinguishing between humans and androids. The only person throughout the whole book who we find out is a genuine human is Phil Resch. He mixes up our opinions of who is and is not an android by throwing in different ways where the various tests used by police could fail. One example of this is for schizoids, even if they are completely human they will show up on the Voigt-Kampff test as androids. “‘The Leningrad psychiatrist,’ Bryant broke in brusquely, ‘think that a small class of human beings could not pass the Voigt-Kampff scale. If you tested them in line with police work, you’d assess them as humanoid robots’” (Dick 36). This plays a big part in blurring the line for Deckard because he believes he is human and that he passed the test when it could really be a false memory given to him when he was commissioned. “‘Our trip was between a mental hospital on the East Coast and here. We’re all schizophrenic, with defective emotional lives—flattening of affect, it’s called’” (Dick 159). Another way the author confuses readers is by giving the androids false memories. This plays a big part in blurring the line for Deckard because he believes he is human. He thinks that he passed the test, but the reader knows that it could really be a false memory given to him when he was commissioned. The only way to know for sure whether a character is a human or an android is with a bone marrow test. In the text, there is never a bone marrow test performed; therefore, we can never be one hundred percent sure if anyone in the book is a human. Many authors share Dick’s thoughts on what technology could become if it is unchecked.
An author who has the same fears of what technology could become is Bill Joy. In Bill Joy’s essay, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”, Joy lays out multiple problems that are being presented to us due to technology. He starts by listing his incredible credentials and then jumps right into why he fears technology is going to ruin us. One of the main parallels between the threats of technology shown is nuclear war. Both Joy and Dick show that they are extremely worried about the threat of a nuclear war followed by a nuclear winter. While Joy talks about how we should have put a stop to the production of the nuclear bomb, Dick shows what the world will be like after a war where nuclear bombs destroy Earth. ”This ownerless ruin had, before World War Terminus, been tended and maintained. Here had been the suburbs of San Francisco, a short ride by monorail rapid transit; the entire peninsula had chattered like a bird tree with life and opinions and complains, and now the watchful owners had either died or migrated to a colony world” (Dick 13). Joy fears that without some restrictions on technology the future of the Earth might end up as Philip Dick predicts in his book.
One place where Dick and Joy do not totally agree is technology’s effect on human nature. On one end, Dick shows technology completely destroying human nature and leaving nothing but radioactive dust. Joy, on the other hand, thinks we need to alter our human nature to protect our future on this Earth. Joy proposes some sort of Hippocratic Oath for scientists and engineers. “Verifying compliance will also require that scientists and engineers adopt a strong code of ethical conduct, resembling the Hippocratic oath, and that they have the courage to whistleblow as necessary, even at high personal cost. This would answer the call - 50 years after Hiroshima - by the Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, one of the most senior of the surviving members of the Manhattan Project, that all scientists cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving, and manufacturing nuclear weapons and other weapons of potential mass destruction”(Joy 11). This was one of the few solutions Joy offered to solve the problem of the incredible danger technology presented. Joy thinks that if we do not alter the way we create and use technology that human nature will eventually be reduced to an emotionless state as depicted by Dick.
On the other side of the spectrum, a writer like Haraway believes the increase in technology is a good thing. She shows a list of objects with two extremes, such as nature and culture going into fields of difference. Her view of technology takes a much more optimistic approach showing boundaries between certain extremes being blurred to the point where they don’t exist anymore. “In this attempt at an epistemological and political position, I would like to sketch a picture of possible unity, a picture indebted to socialist and feminist principles of design. The frame for my sketch is set by the extent and importance of rearrangements in world-wide social relations tied to science and technology” (Haraway 161). She talks about a possible unity from the old hierarchal dominations to new networks called “informatics of domination”. She does not believe technology will destroy the future, she believes it will alter it in a positive direction. Even in her view of a positive direction the difference between human nature and technology will be blurred.
We have been shown two different extreme views of whether the advancement in technology is a good or bad thing. While people like Joy and Dick show it as a bad thing I believe that it is a good thing. As an engineer, I’m focused on making new technologies that improve people’s lives. With this in mind, I believe that the increase in technology will only help with the ease of living. Sure, people can use new technology for bad things, but people can also use it for incredible good things.
I believe that in the beginning of time there was a clear line between technology and human nature. Technology was used a little in everyday life, but not to the extent that it is today. There were times when people spent most of their time outside, rather than sitting inside on Facebook or watching TV. The Internet used to be only for the military. It was not until recently that it was actually used widely by the public. With the commercialization of the Internet and the advancements in things such as artificial intelligence, technology and human nature are quickly becoming the same thing.
Works Cited
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968
Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. 1991
Joy, Bill. "Why the future doesn't need us." Wired 8.04 Apr 2000 12 Oct 2008
Human Nature and Technology (Option 2)
From the beginning and continuing into the present, technology has always been created so as to make human existence simpler and easier, specifically against the forces of nature. Most often people perceive technology as a cell phone or a computer. Although these are both a part of technology, they do not demonstrate the true purpose of technology, which is, to ensure a greater chance of survival, be it from the forces of nature or shear boredom. One of the earliest weapons, the first spear, made by man not only enabled him to hunt and feed his family but also protect them. Eventually as technology and society progressed, the need for technology became a necessity for greater comfort as opposed to survival against nature.
Although technology is a derivation of human creation, it’s interesting to see that human nature is essentially altered and possibly defined by the implications of technology in human lifestyle. As humans are social animals, much of our greatest innovations have resulted as a need to communicate with others in the most efficient and time-saving manner. In retrospect to the 19th century, it is more common today than in the past for those who live in technological societies to communicate with an exponentially higher number of people and with greater ease. In fact, many would consider the unavailability of cell phones and internet to be a major drawback and essentially a major inconvenience. However, there are many parts of the world where this lack of communication via cell phones and internet would only be considered trivial, mainly due to never becoming acquainted with its comforts.
In Philip K. Dick’s, Blade Runner, the world that was introduced to the audience was much more heavily based on technology than the one today. There were several key elements about human nature that was brought forth in the book that help truly understand the concept of human nature. The imperative point the book makes is how dependent the human society became on technology. This point was most clearly demonstrated by the creation of androids. Humans essentially required technology to create such elaborate machines to behave like humans themselves. As discussed in class, it was convincing the purpose for machines to both look and act like humans conveyed a certain need for humans to feel both in control of and association with other human beings. Beyond this, it exemplified the true fragility of human nature. Even as intelligent as humans are, beyond the need for survival, technology’s ultimate fate is to make human lifestyle more comfortable, even at the expense of essentially lessening the need for other real human being with simple technical replacements.
Conclusively, technology is not a direct part of human nature but it has many influences that may both define or alter human nature. As seen in Blade Runner, humans become dependant on technology where, beyond the its essential need for survival, it becomes a need for compatibility and association with other humans. As previously discussed, humans are social animals that require interactions with other social beings. As shown, most of our technological advances, beyond the need for survival and comfort, were for communication so as to interact more with other humans, or social beings. In Blade Runner, technology eventually came to replace the ultimate need to interact with other humans with the creation of androids, a synthetic social animal.
Bibliography
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Updated 14 October 2008, 10:55 UTC. Encyclopedia on-line. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature. Internet. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
Technology and Nature
In his piece One-Dimensional Man", Herbert Marcuse makes some very broad, powerful statements in regard to the relationship between technology and nature. While Marcuse's thoughts make sense on at least an intrinsic level, the very scope of them makes them disagreeable. Marcuse claims that humans will always find joy at some base level from being able to outdo and subordinate nature. Any time that man is able to accomplish something via technology that at one point was only available to nature, then he or she is happy. However, the relationship between technology and nature exists at a far more contextual level. Thus, due to the situational and subjective nature of the topic, in some instances man's transcendence over nature elicits happiness; in others it accomplishes the very antithesis.
Marcuse sees technology and nature as in conflict with one another. Technology, to his view, is an unnatural tool employed by humans to match or even overpower the capabilities of nature and thus develop unnatural societies. Such unnatural societies, exerting their supreme will over nature, then superficially revere it in order to essentially make themselves seem more natural. Along with technology, Marcuse claims that Reason is also a culprit. Reason is used to justify nature and make it rational so that it can be more easily understood by humans. Through understanding, humans can derive a sort of appreciation or even enjoyment from nature. Reason allows humans to look past the harsh, brutal reality of nature and see an understandable basis for all that transpires.
In this way, Marcuse follows he path of connecting Reason with Art. "Nature is opposed to Art, and natural to artificial." (Mill 374) Art can serve as a representation of nature, but one that is necessarily bounded by the will of the artist. Thus, Art creates a subjugated version of nature, which is the manner in which humans find nature enjoyable. In this fashion, Art and Reason share the same functionality. To Marcuse, man uses technology to rise above nature and through the power of reason joy is derived from the act, no matter the situation. The wills of nature and man, armed with technology and Reason, conflict.
From a very basic perspective, such thoughts are simple to rationalize. Ever since early man began to use clubs and other techniques to hunt prey and improve self-defense, perhaps the very beginning of technology, the benefits of surpassing nature have been increased prosperity in terms of well-being and longevity. However, Marcuse's idea that joy stems purely from transcendent power over nature is simply too wide of a scope to encompass all of the potential scenarios which dictate the opposite or present alternative viewpoints. For instances, Holmes Rolston III presents the idea that the overall goal man has for technology is to not necessarily put nature into submission but to rebuild nature into a more suitable, beneficial form. (Rolston 2)
Of course there is a fine line between what one may consider to be transcending nature and rebuilding it. Rolston provides the example of a Boeing jet. It follows the natural laws of aerodynamics but was developed via technology to allow man to accomplish something Marcuse would see as unnatural. (Rolston 3) Indeed, Marcuse could certainly argue that Rolston's example of rebuilding represents his own concept of transcendence. However, while the true classification is subjective to the point of being impossible to reach a single correct decision, the fact remains that Rolston's view has a significant conflict with that of Marcuse; Rolston claims that man's only joy from rebuilding/transcending nature stems from scenarios in which such actions are of immediate benefit.
Rolston delves into an area sharing something in common with the argument of nature versus nurture. Rolston understand that to a large degree humans are a product of the technology that surrounds them. While correlating technology as a component of culture, Rolston writes:
"In this sense, nature is the given. No culture can ever be independent of nature, not unless some future society learns to produce matter ex nihilo (from nothing). Culture will always have to be constructed out of, superimposed on, nature." (Rolston 4) Parenthetical added for clarity.
Being the given, nature forms the standard against which all else is measured. If man is able to benefit from doing that which nature does, then there will be joy. If man does not benefit, though, he or she will not necessary experience any sense of happiness from the mere fact of being capable of mimicking nature. To exemplify this he writes:
"An artificial leg is inferior to a natural leg, which has been lost in an accident, however much the artificial one is desired in those tragic circumstances. In certain contexts, we seldom want something artificial. [...] There is nothing pejorative about 'synthetic oil'; like synthetic rubber, it is better than the original oil." (Rolston 5)
The word "context" is critical. Should man's ability to transcend nature and create limbs without organic growth result in bliss due solely from the act itself, as Marcuse proposes, then certainly people everywhere would want artificial limbs. This is not the case, though, because at the moment such limbs provide no benefit relative to natural limbs. Perhaps at some point in time artificial limbs will be superior. At that time, the benefits may make such alterations widespread and people will be happy with them. Until then, however, the lack of benefit means that most people are not happy about having to use artificial limbs.
The concept of superiority in nature and outweighing technological benefits appears frequently in literature. One of the most profound examples from both sides of the spectrum is Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Dick presents a world deeply conflicted by technological advancements which have outclassed anything natural and where man-made fill-ins for nature have also become a bane upon society. Dick's brilliance is in presenting both sides of the issue. For example, man's ability to master interplanetary travel and move from an admittedly ruined Earth to live on other worlds is certainly unnatural in every sense of the word as far as Marcuse would be concerned. To most people in the story, though, moving offworld is seen as wildly beneficial, as it allows for them to both move away from a shattered planet and protects them from the effects of the radioactive dust. Advertisements even proclaim, "Emigrate of degenerate! The choice is yours!" (Dick 6)
In this instance, the benefits of transcending nature are obvious and thus celebrated by humanity, or at least by those members able to reap said benefits. Those unable to embark to other worlds for whatever reason are therefor still bound by nature to live out their lives in relative misery. By the same token, the people of Dick's world have also overcome nature in regard to their natural emotions. With the advent of the mood organ, people can forgo whatever they should naturally be feeling and instead feel however they might desire. (Dick 2) Again, this development of emotional creation pars nature. Since it is beneficial, though, humans are happy with it and would rather use it than feel as their life, or even as nature, would dictate. Were there no benefit, nature would remain at the fore and natural emotions would still reign, giving man no joy from its development.
However, Dick also supports the other side of Rolston's concept; if technological advancements in transcendence over nature provide no benefit then man will not still be intrinsically happy over the matter. In fact, one of the basic themes of Dick's work is that natural creation and life are revered while artificial life is devalued to the extreme. The first instance of this is in regard to animals. Owning a real, live animal is a matter of the utmost importance in the society that Dick creates, both for personal welfare and societal norms. Owning an electric animal, which shares a likeness to the real thing in almost every way, is scorned because it provides no benefit relative to real animals. Electric animals meet the owner's need to conform to societal norms only. They do nothing for the owner's well being in the sense of emotional benefit. Throughout the novel, Deckard is tormented by the fact that his sheep is electric. When he reveals this fact to his neighbor, Barbour responds by saying, "You poor guy. Has it always been this way?" (Dick 9) Barbour clearly empathizes with Deckard that owning an electric animal is simply not as good as having a real one. Thus, neither man is going to celebrate the fact that humanity has technologically created life since it does them little good.
Following in line with this, the idea of androids, artificial humans, being less desirable and less of a reason for happiness than authentic, natural humans is unavoidable. Androids were developed mainly to appease colonists leaving Earth. Clearly problems would arise with giving colonists actual human slaves as incentive, so the goal was to use "the android servant as [a] carrot." (Dick 9) It can easily be hypothesized that the only reason for making the androids appear to be human rather than outwardly artificial was to appeal to the more sadistic side of the human masters who would come to the conclusion that having utter domination over a natural human would be better than an artificial emulation created for just such a purpose.
This in turn promotes the idea that androids are substandard lifeforms that do not serve to benefit society in the same manner that a human would. Thus, Deckard develops his own thoughts in regard to androids as sub-lifeforms and killers, making it easier for him to "retire" them and claiming that "[...] the humanoid robot constituted a solitary predator. Rick liked to think of them that way; it made his job palatable." (Dick 29) Indeed the very concept of retiring androids rather than killing them supports this idea. As androids provide less benefit to society than a real human, most people are not directly happy in regard to the fact that man has essentially completed the supreme act of transcending nature by creating human life. Instead, this action is viewed as the generation of slaves sub par relative to natural human slaves and denizens of the world who fall at the very bottom run of the societal ladder.
Later in the novel when Deckard begins to see greater benefits that androids can provide, such as Luba Luft's ability to perform admirably in an opera, his whole outlook changes. Rather than simply being vermin, the solitary predators he needs to retire, Deckard begins to see androids as beings that can have a purpose. He even says:
"'I'm capable of feeling empathy for at least specific, certain androids. Not for all of them but - one or two.' For Luba Luft, as an example, he said to himself." (Dick 140)
As he sees change in his own benefit from androids, or at least particular androids, Deckard shifts from being apathetic in regard to their so-called lives and comes to lament the loss of one, Luba Luft, the actions of which he could derive happiness from.
The matter of what qualifies as nature can even be taken a step further while maintaining the same results in terms of benefit and happiness. One could say that the inherent or natural movements made by a being are also a form of nature. Humans walk the way they do, for example, because it is a natural movement. In The Principles of Scientific Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor attempts to transcend nature in the form of movement by working through the science of technique. Taylor's goal was to substitute highly studied, controlled movement for natural movement, writing of the idea that:
"These kinds of improvements are typical of the ways in which needless motions can be entirely eliminated and quicker types of movements substituted for slow movements when scientific motion study [...] [is] applied in any trade." (Taylor 40)
The question again arises if such a scientific transcendence of nature is truly beneficial. Taylor's work allowed individuals to earn higher wages but also required them to work to the brink of exhaustion every day. To those workers who saw their wages as the supreme benefit, a great deal of happiness was likely to be had from Taylor's developments for them. For those disliking the almost brutal workload or who lost their jobs due to being deemed unfit for the position from the viewpoint of Taylor's methodology, the more likely result would be agreement with Donna Haraway's assessment of the situation as "the nightmare of Taylorism." (Haraway 150) Once again, the context of the situation and the relative benefit for the individual determines whether or not happiness is truly achieved.
Marcuse keys in well upon the seemingly competitive relationship between nature and technology. However,the legitimacy of his argument is hampered by his focus upon the big-picture. The world is far too contextualized for the sweeping generalization Marcuse wants to make. While technological triumph over nature may lead to happiness, there is a correlation rather than causation. Humans look to benefit from any situation rather than being intrinsically happy regardless of the outcome.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968
Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. 1991, pp. 149-181.
Mill, John Stuart. "Nature." Three Essays on Religion. 1874, p. 374.
Rolston III, Holmes. Technology Versus Nature: What is Natural?. http://www.abdn.ac.uk/philosophy/endsandmeans/vol2no2/rolston.shtml
Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management. 1911.
Technology's Transition into Human Nature
When approaching a prompt discussing two things as broad as human nature and technology, it is imperative to be able to understand what the focus and the context that each term is used in. They possess very diverse meanings and have very different effects on each other. In this case, we are asked what the basic relationship between technology and human nature is and whether or not they are in turn part of one another. Technology is in general agreed upon to have a pretty generic meaning. We discussed in class that it deals with the “technique”. Technique, according to Webster’s dictionary is the method of performance or the way of accomplishing something. On the contrary, to begin the endless task of trying to define human nature, it becomes apparent that it has several, varying definitions. There are so many in fact, that in my opinion, there is no true definition of the term. In all actuality, I think that human nature has become a sub-definition of technology itself and why this created human nature will be the demise of the entire race.
After the countless hours of reading the material for this class, and other sorts of philosophical reading, it is easy for me to say that human nature is completely fabricated, meaning that it is created rather than already being there. Human nature has been known as the instinctive responses by humans to certain situations and events. After reading that definition off Wikipedia, I started to think whether or not what humans perceive as their human nature is actually instinctive. This is where the definition of technology and human nature begin to merge. I think it is fair to assume that the majority of people would agree that humans are creatures of efficiency. There is always someone out their wanting more or doing something better and faster than the next. Encountering a term like modern technology encompasses and fortifies that humans are obsessed with just that. The internet, cell phones, pagers, laptops, are all inventions of the twentieth century. These things were created out of our species need for instant communication and easier access to each other.
Is it fair to say that efficiency is instinctive? I would argue that it is. The earliest humans were individuals of survival. They possessed valuable instincts that allowed humans to become the dominant species that they are today. From these instincts came the first technology. Their techniques for survival and dominance would eventually lead us to the electronic and computerized world we live in. It is incredible to think of what we have evolved into. However, what has made the human species great, I’m afraid will eventually cause the demise as well. Two authors that strongly agree with this are Bill Joy and Phillip K. Dick. In Joy’s “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” he warns us of technology’s role in human life. One example is the nuclear and nanotechnology usefulness.
“Unfortunately, as with nuclear technology, it is far easier to create destructive uses for nanotechnology than constructive ones. Nanotechnology has clear military and terrorist uses, and you need not be suicidal to release a massively destructive nanotechnological device - such devices can be built to be selectively destructive, affecting, for example, only a certain geographical area or a group of people who are genetically distinct.” (Joy, 10-11)
Joy is suggesting that a lot of the technology that we humans are creating today is going to be used in ways detrimental to the human race rather than beneficial. A fictional depiction of Joy’s nightmare is given to us by Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The story takes place in a world devastated by a nuclear war and is completely stripped of “nature”. There are abundant examples of this “nature-less” world throughout the story that anyone reading the book would understand that the world has more or less become a barren wasteland.
“In a giant, empty, decaying, building which had once housed thousands, a single TV set hawked its wares to an uninhabited room.” (Dick, 13)
Everything had changed from what it used to be. Their human nature which was driven by technology, led to a lifeless earth. Both Joy and Dick argue that technology will eventually drive the human race to its downfall. Not only will technology ultimately lead to the collapse of what we humans experience today, the desensitizing that Joy and especially Dick warn us about might be the worst of all. The use of mood machines that let you determine the way you will feel that day, rather letting yourself feel the way that you actually do and the invention of machines with human attributes and feelings might be the crucial point where human nature as we know it dies. Although Dick’s portrayal is a fictional tale, it is not hard to believe that with the advances the human race has made in the last two hundred years that anything is possible. It becomes very obvious that technology will literally become human nature, rather than it just being a blurred line and sub-definition of each other.
Whether we would like to admit it or not, we are completely reliant on technology today. In a sense, the lives we live today were created by technology. So in turn, our human nature, the things that we instinctively do, have become affected by technology. The first thing that we are supposed to do when there is a fire or a crime is committed is to call 911. There were not always phones, so what happened before that? Someone yelled for a police officer. It is the same premise, but the invention of the telephone and technology’s influence on our daily lives has become our human nature. Another example would be asking questions. We as humans instinctively ask questions when something confuses us or when we are curious about something. Today, getting a question answered is as easy as accessing the internet or making a phone call. Technology has undoubtedly shaped the way we live our lives.
Ultimately the relationship between human nature and technology has become so close to being the same meaning that it is painstaking to even attempt to argue against it. The consequences of such actions are yet to be seen on a large scale for us in the real world. However, authors and philosophers warn that this continued path will eventually lead to the end. No one knows what the future will hold for the human race, and the affects that it will have on “human nature”. However, as it stands right now, technology has become what we know and do as human nature.
Messed up first post
Midterm: Lyotard & Haraway: Which Relationship is Better? (option 1)
Before I begin to tell you about the relationship between gender and technology, I am going to introduce to what those terms mean separately. According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, gender is defined as “1 a: a subclass within a grammatical class (as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms; b: membership of a word or a grammatical form in such a subclass; c: an inflectional form showing membership in such a subclass. 2 a: sex
Now, I’m going to begin with the direction our general definition of technology leads us. Technology has a wide variety of definitions but most of them lead us to the same conclusion. That conclusion is that technology is anything that is and/or has been created. Merriam-Webster says that technology is “1 a: the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area: engineering 2
Lyotard’s stance on the relationship between gender and technology is that whether it is male or female, we all work like a computer. We survive based on our abilities to gather information about our surroundings. Our thought processes are the keys to be able to remember this information when the time comes to use it. And if this solar explosion were to happen now, how would we survive? What tactics would we use to avoid being extinction? So we see what Lyotard thinks of the relationship now let’s look at what Haraway believes.
Haraway believes that the relationship between gender and technology is from a more feminist view that women were used to do all the duties around the home and that the men would do all the work elsewhere.. But she does make the point that using the image of cyborgs would “suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves.” (Haraway 181) We now have each view on this relationship. Now I have to decide which one I believe.
In his work, Can Thought go on Without a Body, Lyotard views technology from two aspects, the “HE,” and “SHE.” He breaks down his work into two sections. “HE” begins by describing to us how while we talk the sun is getting older and will blow up in 4.5 billion years (Lyotard 8). Lyotard is talking about how philosophers come up with these questions that can never be answered. This is thought. He says that “after the sun’s death there won’t be a thought to know that its death took place”( Lyotard 9). Lyotard states that technology created humans.
How’s this possible one might ask? He says “Even the simplest life forms … are already technical devices. Any material system is technological if it filters information useful to its survival, if it memorizes and processes that information … if it intervenes on and impacts its environment so as to assure its perpetuation at least. A human being is not different in nature from an object of this type.” (Lyotard 12)
He proceeds with a comparison of human beings’ nature and environment compared to the simplest life forms. He goes on to say that humans are a “living organization that is not only complex but replex” (Lyotard 12). He believes that our bodies are the “hardware” of the technical device he calls human thought (Lyotard 13). He continues by telling us that if the body is not functioning properly that human thought is impossible. He believes that we need to develop a new hardware that can handle a software as complex as the brain or something just as equivalent, but it has to be maintained by “sources of energy available in the cosmos” (Lyotard 13). He continues on and on with this until the next section of his argument starts, “SHE.”
In this section Lyotard talks about the gender differences between men and women and how men have a little femininity and how women have some masculinity. Without this how would either know what the other one is like? The force that fuels this knowledge and want of an opposite gender is desire. He goes on to say “the intelligence that you’re preparing to survive the solar explosion will have to carry that force within it on its interstellar voyage. Your thinking machines will have to be nourished not just on radiation but on the irremediable differend of gender.” (Lyotard 22) Lyotard is saying that in order for us to survive, we must either create a new “being,” or we will surely perish.
Haraway states in her work, A Cyborg Manifesto, that “cyborgs are creatures simultaneously animal and machine, who populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted.” (Haraway 149) She also states that modern medicine has cyborgs in it as well. She believes that each one is conceived as a coded device. This is set “in an intimacy and with a power that was not generated in the history of sexuality.” (Haraway 150) on page 152 Haraway begins talking about the distinction between animal-human (organism) and machine. She talks about a “ghost in the machine.” She says that machines weren’t “self-moving, self-designing, or autonomous.” She goes on to say that they mocked man’s dream since they could not achieve it. Haraway says “Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.” (Haraway 152) Why should we cower from the machines that we created? The solar explosion will destroy these machines and these humans unless we create a machine so powerful that it can carry out human tasks.
I believe in Lyotard’s theory because of what I have seen as I have grown up. We have advanced technology so much within the past 20-30 years that if we were to tell people how far technology would come along and help us, they would think we were crazy. A prime example of an innovator in technology is Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft. And technology is this man’s pride and joy. The man created the Microsoft Company back in 1975 and later created the computer program Windows in 1985. (Microsoft.com) This program was the first of its kind and restructured what we know to be as the basic computer program. Bill Gates, a male, created what we now know as the premier computer company in the world. And he hasn’t stopped yet. In 2003 he created a new video gaming system with the X-Box and now with the release of the X-box 360 in 2005 he has revolutionized gaming. He continues to astonish the world of technology with his innovative ideas and creations. The man will never stop because this is what he loves. If there is one person on this planet that could come up with a “being” to perform all human functions to survive this “solar explosion” I feel that it would be Bill Gates.
Technology appears to be a male dominated field. But it really isn’t is it? How many women know more about computers then men? I do not have an answer but I’m sure there are plenty of them out there. I know a lot of women that do things in technology that I did not know existed. It doesn’t matter what gender we are, we are all equal. We all understand what things are after we gain knowledge about them. We all survive due to the experiences we have had over the years. We know if it’s 12 degrees outside to wear a heavy winter jacket with a hat, scarf, gloves, maybe even long-johns for those who wear them. It’s a survival tactic that we have grown up to know. It’s like riding a bike, if you fall off you get back on and try again. If you stop riding for a while and get back on, you’ll remember exactly what happens if you fall. You get up and back on and try again. You never really forget what happens in any event that occurs during your lifetime because each significant event has a cue in our mind and when something happens to trigger that specific cue, we know what we have to keep going. We can survive, we just have to figure out what the cue is for a solar explosion.
Bibliography
Haraway, Donna. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.
Lyotard, Jean Francois. "Can Thought go on Without a Body?" By Jean Francois Lyotard. 8-23.
Merriam-Webster, comp. "Gender." Merriam-Webster Online.
Merriam-Webster. "Technology." Merriam-Webster Online.
Microsoft. “Bill Gates.” Microsoft online.