Gollum and the Future of Technology

Pondering the future of technology after viewing an interview with Steve Jobs on Netflix... I can't help to question whether the "perfectification" of computer technology that makes Apple products so congenial and so useable that one forgets they are using a computer at all is something that will lead society toward greener pastures, or, rather, toward more frightening possibilities. Films like The Matrix show how an almost complete computerization (or digitization,"virtualization") of life on earth might look. It seems appropriate to invoke Gollum here too - with computer devices like Macbook Airs and iPhones that people covet so severely, I am reminded of that little cave-dwelling once-healthy beast so concerned about his most "precious" shiny possession. What will become of those who attach themselves too much to these addiction-creating devices? Detachment from those things that actually promote and sustain their lives? And, as can be seen in various post-apocalyptic renditions - this very detachment, alienation, will eventually lead to a jarring re-assertion of the more immediate and direct needs (I am thinking here of The Road and the incessant trial for survival in a hostile environment). 

Artinatural

Artinatural - the state of being simultaneously artificial and natural.

Knowledge Justice & Knowledge Equality

Knowledge Justice - the notion that the acquisition and possession of certain forms of knowledge can be issues of justice.

Knowledge Equality recognizes the disparities of access to and possession of knowledge(s) that can have significant personal and social repercussions. These disparities differ across nations and between stratified groups.

Knowledge is akin to monetary wealth and can be understood with the same mental models some use to speak of wealth inequalities such as the 99%/1% discourse. Knowledges, however, cannot be as easily quantified as money and therefore knowledge inequality is not only a difficult problem to discuss, but it is also a deceptively powerful and pervasive.  

Technology Excess Disorder

Technology Excess Disorder (T.E.D.) - personal, social and/or societal condition caused by excessive amounts of technology, technological devices, and/or technocratic/technoscientific practices.

The Journey of this Post

The truth about this blog post is that it has traveled billions of miles in space and billions of years to get here, wherever here really is. This post is a relic on earth, a substantiation of biological evolution, and a re-formation of the sun's energy (that embodies many re-formations - light, energy, plants, food, and animals including myself). And from any other planet's perspective, human beings are aliens. So this blog post contains a message from an alien that has travelled millions of years through space. The funny thing about fantasy and sci-fi films is that they almost always seem to neglect these truths (although 2001: A Space Odyssey may come close, at least figuratively speaking, and maybe the Russian original Solaris).

The trip that this post has taken to become materialized also contains in it the more specific evolutions in human technologies - electricity, internet, radio waves, wi-fi, satellite (as the case may be).

To return to the theme of nature - which the above is really all a part of - how will these technologies interplay with the future of humanity? In light of the previous post, it is important to first note that technological development will not likely supply us with some sort of "silver bullet" solution. Technology, so far, has delivered a rather significant net negative impact on earth's ecosystems - and there's really no guarantee that more technological development will form into a net positive impact.

If technology cannot provide a solution to a nature in peril, then what could? Many have argued that a decreases in consumption, rather than changes to production, could be the most crucial changes. I would add that changes in perspective, consciousness and understanding may be even more central in this process. For nature to better reflect on nature - therein lies the answer.

Humbler

As I live through more days and years I grow humbler and humbler about both what it is human beings know and what human beings can know. With all the new technologies that have been developed it can become easy to assume that human beings can know and do just about anything - this is, however, not the case.

Take, for example, my trips to the optometry center in the search for a better contact lens prescription. After the first visit I was sent out with lenses that blurred my vision more than my old lenses had. On my second visit we all moved closer to finding good lenses, however, it quickly became clear that the dozens or so of offerings from the contact lens companies were never going to effectively match the peculiar size and curvature of my cornea. The human solution simply could not reach the precision of reality. Even expensive custom fitted lenses or Lasik surgery, I'm sure, would offer various other imperfections.

The same imperfections are true across the natural and physical sciences. Numbers, for example, cannot completely match up to reality. I remember one time trying to convince a bioengineer that the numbers 1 and 2 do not actually exist out there, outside of the human mind. There may be 1 tree in a field, moreover, but that tree is far more complex, far different than the number 1. As physicists try and try to find the smallest unit, it seems, there will always be one smaller. Can we ever purify something down to the true "1"? I do not think so. Numbers do though exist in the universe, that is, in our minds.

So as I try to think about the idea of nature and the threats to the natures of our planet, I will have to do so with the imperfect tools of human thought and sciences. Partly because minds are imperfect, inconsistent, and limited, many of the world's environmental problems proliferate. It is an uphill battle to reconfigure one's mind to better reflect both nature's needs and one's own needs, but it is a battle - I might argue - worth trying.

Beginnings

This web log is dedicated to musings on the oddness and unlikeliness of a "nature" that is self-reflexive. I see myself as one among many of nature's self-reflexive beings (that we English speakers call humans, homo sapiens, homo sapiens sapiens, or human beings)... so I am a part of nature reflecting on nature (hence the title).