Learning time!

Put your thinking caps on, it's time to take an intellectual ride!

I just read an essay by Christopher Lasch called "The Degradation of Practical Arts" and I'm kind of disturbed by it.

Basically this guy is trying to debunk the commonly held idea that technology is inherently neutral, and is simply put to use in good or evil ways. He spends a lot of time talking about machines taking over jobs on assembly lines, and I'm going to spare you all of that because it's just as boring as it sounds.

But towards the end he begins to draw some interesting philosophical conclusions.

He makes the assertion that the capitalist ideology is bred by our human desire to break through our biological limitations, and "achieve godlike powers over nature through [our] own innovations." I only kind of see the link between this and capitalism, and would call it weak at best, but that's only kind of relevant to what I'm getting at here. Anyways, he relates this to Faust's pursuit of limitless knowledge, saying it's a "revolt against the human body, [hoping] that intelligence, once it frees itself the prison of the body--the seat of human limitations--can grasp timeless truths and, through technology, conquer scarcity, sickness, and perhaps someday even death itself."

This is not exactly a new revelation--that we are using technology for more than just speedier production. We are creating all kinds of things, particularly in medicine, to enrich our lives...to cheat our biological limitations.

Where it gets kind of creepy is when he begins to talk about expanding these biological limitations through artificial intelligence. He says that now that we have created machines that can allegedly think for themselves, "human intervention can only distort and subjectify the beautiful objectivity of the machine...the condition of this so-called thinking [by the machine] is that it operate at a level of abstraction where feelings play no part." This also isn't really a new idea--the cold, emotionless machine.

He then shows how scientific revelations are nothing but assaults on our human pride: the Earth is not the center of the universe, we evolved from apes, and now computers are showing us how limited we are. He says "the scientific worldview hates the body not merely because it decays, but because it is held to be the source of desire. On this view of things, it is because human beings are driven by bodily needs and desires that their understanding is so limited...Machines...think with perfect clarity because they have no feelings to get in the way."

We hate our hearts for getting in the way of our minds, so we entrust the job of our minds to machines.

Edward Fredkin writes "Basically, the human mind is not most like a god or most like a computer. It's most like the mind of a chimpanzee and most of what's there isn't designed for living in an advanced society but for getting along in the jungle or out in the fields...The fact is, I think we'll be enormously happier once our niche has limits to it. We won't have to worry about carrying the burden of the universe on our shoulders as we do today. We can enjoy life as human beings without worrying about it."

Lasch concludes all of this by saying that technology isn't neutral, but rather a reflection of who we wish we could be. Factory owners wished they could have more efficient workers, so they made machines to do it. We wished we could instantly connect with people we know all over the world, so we made a telephone to do it. We wished we could fly so we made airplanes and spaceships to do it.

...we wish we could think without feeling, so we are making artificial intelligence to do it?


You could look at it that way, or you could look at it and say that we wish we didn't have to think about things anymore so that we can live a more...emotional?...life.

Either way, I don't think it's wise to separate the two. Sometimes our minds need our hearts to guide us, and sometimes its the other way around. You can't just separate the two and delegate the tasks to separate vehicles for the sake of efficiency like in factories.

What do you think?