Tech-worshipping rhetoric

As part of EDCMOOC, I've been glancing through the Technology Enhanced Learning (tel.ac.uk) report. It rests on a reasonably sound premise that since much of society uses technology, so education should prepare us for real world tasks. Further, it should do so with purpose built or designed technology for learning.

What bugged me however, in the desire to see this happen is the following quote (p7)

Computational thinking is a powerful and general way of exploring how systems and processes work, including societies, the spread of diseases, interacting technologies, and our own minds and bodies. As the world becomes more and more automated and digital, the language of computers needs to become the fluent second language of learners.

These kinds of new knowledge are the understandings required in the 21st century. We are living in a world of increasing interdependence and complexity. Science and maths underpin so much of everyday life yet too few people understand how they are done. Quite simply, this knowledge is currently owned by the 21st century digital priesthood – we have yet to democratise it. This knowledge is essential if we are to be productive and engaged citizens.

I'm often confused by the rhetoric of the democratization of knowledge when it is obtained in this case by hard work, personal giftedness and a solid application to formal and/or informal education. True, opportunity is also an issue - economic or social disadvantage, but that's not being critiqued here. Certainly more can be done in computer education, but to use the religious slur (perhaps highlighting the author's bigotry towards religion) of digital priesthood as if they were holding back knowledge deliberately goes a bit far. While programming skills can be taught simply, stating that knowledge should be democratized won't automatically make everyone smart enough to program a supercomputer, though it may help in other tasks, including using interfaces to get useful jobs done. You can lead horses to water but not everyone can drink to the same depth.

This idea of priesthood also ignores what I said earlier - those who understand made the effort to do so and may have been attracted to this because doing medicine or economics for the money didn't attract them, or they were brighter than those who'd rather pontificate about technology than have the ability to understand and use it.

In short, metaphors carry a world of meaning. It's religiously discriminatory for the author to use priesthood as a way of tarring people in a bad light, it's also possibly blaming the innocent for the crimes of others. Finally, using democracy to speak of technology is probably ill-placed. Equal access, yes. But I can't vote to be smart or talented or informed; I can, if given access, attempt to learn something so that I can be productive and engaged.

More than meat? Posthumanism

The readings and videos for E-learning and online culture MOOC (EDCMOOC) om post-humanism gelled nicely with the past couple of weeks in the Intro to Philosophy MOOC where we've been looking at epistemology and radical scepticism and then brains, minds and computers.

Ever since the decline of the view of humans as the imago Dei, the image of God, we've been struggling to see what defines us. Of course some of us still hold to this view, but nonetheless want to take seriously the complexities of culture, comparative biology, the effects of technology and so on.

Rene Descartes asked us to believe in dualism. Simply put, reductionism, the view that the explanatory arrow always points downwards, led to the idea that everything was just meat - we were meat. Not being able to tolerate this I suspect from as much the phenomenological point of view, let alone the theological statement of humans as imago Dei (image of God), posited dualism. Since dualism is widely rejected in philosophy, identity theory identifies mind states with physical states (either tokens - each mind state is identified with a brain state or types, each type of physical mental state is identified with types of physical states). This view is considered too simple by Hilary Putnam, suggesting it is too anthropocentric. Evolutionary convergence shows intelligence and consciousness (of sorts) has arisen in different mental architecture several times, and so platform independence of things like pain (i.e. different animals and potential aliens) feel pain but using different brains suggests that a functional view of mind is more useful.

The point of all of this? What does it mean to be human? Apart from God, it can be hard to pin down. Is humanity plastic because drugs can alter personality? Can we find drugs that not only enhance us physically, but morally as well? Nietzsche declared God is dead, postmodernism declared the author as dead; has neuroscience killed the human?

And now posthumanism? Given homo sapiens is the thinking ape (if thought it not an illusion) and a tool using ape (ok granted the Gombi chimps, we still do so to a much greater degree), haven't we always augmented our reality with speaks, axes, clothes, shelters, and then writing, art, mechanization, modern medicine and finally computing. So in all of this - is our humanity advanced (if it exists) or is it perverted? 

From the outset I want to assert that I believe in the imago Dei in humans, and therefore hold onto what some would call a pre-modern view of humans. I also see this as a functional ontology, and hence it is less about how we are human but what we are human for - and this is relationship to God, each other and to the created world around us. So if technology draws us away from God, it does not enhance what it means to be human. If it seeks to make us Godlike - quite apart from what I perceive of the blasphemy of such an assertion (tower of Babel anyone?), it is the ultimate act of hubris if not delusion (singularity delusions). If it doesn't draw people together (hence the week 3 articles for EDCMOOC on the human touch) then it subtracts from what it means to be human. And if it replaces (rather than providing a degree of protection such as housing, clothes and good meteorological science and technology does) our contact with nature/creation, it takes away from what it means to be human. There is already research to show that cutting down trees is bad for our health.

So genuinely posthuman technology means just that as we will be less than human, beyond all that we value. Technology in of itself doesn't do that - but somethings come with an ontology that steers us in that direction.

You can't stop the signal

Not that I've ever watched Serenity (and people who know me have told me I should), but apparently there is a line often used 'You can’t stop the signal'. This seems to be a big theme in the videos from this weeks EDCMOOC resources. Let's have a think about some themes that are being suggested

Ubiquity

Technology is already ubiquitous. You only have to step onto public transport in Australia to see iPods, iPhones, smart phones and MP3 players in use, also tablets (iPads and others) as well as older school hand held game consoles. Australians (and I suspect English and Americans) love technology. I spend the day in front of a PC, use the cloud (Google Drive), and ponder and pontificate on technology.

In A day made of glass 2, technology is everywhere, from opening our eyes to closing them. I admit often the first and last thing I do is check my email on my iPhone (something maybe I should change). What this movie projects is that the technology is even more tightly integrated and incredibly easy to use. I'm typing now on a keyboard, but it almost seemed in the movie that text had a much lesser role. In an image rich culture this is not surprising, but we lose the written word at great cost to issues like fact, truth, value and so on. Some have suggested that the loss of handwriting skills is also a great loss (when did you last send a letter in the post?).

One of my concerns in the movie was the field trip. While the ability to share the experience with family is seen as a bonding experience, as was the girl doing her homework - does this come at the loss of verbal skills and storytelling 'mum you should have seen it ...'. It's also interesting (and I'm thinking Google glasses too) that the field trip was a natural location but technologically mediated, as if one becomes incapable of experiencing even the outdoors without a veneer if not a whole thick layer of technology. Guide books are replaced with etools and imaginations with animations.

This mediation in Productivity future vision took the form of glasses allowing translation and guidance, no doubt useful but also illustrating an Accidental tourist view of travel - as if you hadn't left your home with all the tech support. Efficient yes, and it also makes borders disappear with well run online meetings. This highlights the tendency of technology in many ways to warp time and space, but leaves me with lingering doubts about the flattening of the world - the goal of market capitalism I guess. The idea of a virtual busker is kind of contrary to the point of busking, which is not just a financial transaction. Maybe this movie is dystopic in that it makes us all part of an economy rather than a society.

Invasive
In Sight, the ubiquity of technology becomes invasive and cynical. If Productivity future vision is about making money (Mammon) then Sight is about Aphrodite: getting laid. While many technologies enforce a kind of societal ADHD, Sight is about technology mediated Autism; that lack of ability to pick up on social cues properly, or at least to manipulate them cynically for sex. Mammon and Aphrodite are two great Western idols.

The technology is invasive, becoming part of our bodies so that unlike A day made of glass 2 where technology can be put down (and put to good use when it is picked up), we are Borg. Our technology is there all of the time. This is no more clearer than in Charlie 13, a not untypical (pardon the double negative) theme of invasive tracking devices (think Demolition Man with Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone, itself a spin on Brave New World). With security cameras, smart travel cards and voluntary identification like checking in with Facebook, we are part of the way there.

So do we use technology or do we use ourselves by using it that way, and will we end up with others using us (hang on, online advertising) with our technology. The choice is ours.





Sight from Sight Systems on Vimeo.

Nature or technology: do we have to choose?

This video for edcmooc makes me think that technology and culture are not independent and that technology versus nature is a false dichotomy.

Starting with the later - ever wanted to be naked in all sorts of weather? Guess what, doesn't work for us. My dog sheds fur when it gets hot and shed it again to get his winter coat (come to think of it, Labradors shed all of the time). Me, I change clothes. We don't sleep under the stars all of the time as getting soaked or freezing to death is not good - so technology at its simplest level shields us from nature to the extent that it protects us for much of the time against the negative impacts.

If we view technology from an essentialist viewpoint, then this dystopic video says that technology necessarily makes us more or less blind to the natural world around us - except where it either causes us hardship (think fireants in the US as more likely to cause blackouts than birds) or where we cause them hardship (I think from memory collisions with windows kill far more birds than windfarms). While a window shields us from heat, cold and rain, it need not shield us from nature. So does technology in of itself hide nature from us? Perhaps the more we embrace technology in and of itself rather than how it aids and protects us, that we hide behind our phones and can't see the birds around us (so long as the phones don't stop us from seeing the people in front of us at least it connects us) and we travel into space merely to look down on ourselves (technology as narcissism).

Make sure you take the opportunity today to look up from your phone or computer screen and look out of the window before a power outage forces you to.

Dystopic technology - our Golden Calf

This video from YouTube which is part of the required viewing for the edcmooc paints an interesting if not dystopic view of technology. I think far from being a racist depiction of islander culture (it's too obvious to be that) we see our own enslavement to technology, obsession with the newest and latest and hence throwaway culture, and the idolizing of technology as our Golden Calf (how's that for a long sentence?)

The relationship is clearly an uneasy one as depicted, sometimes following, sometimes fleeing. This mock essentialist view (of technology or us?) is that the human heart seeks to worship something, and so technology helps fill that God-shaped void within each one of us. As an instrument of extending the reach of free market capitalism, it appears to destroy culture, literally shown in falling on its faithful worshipers.

Whether or not this view is entirely fair, I often think of the program on SBS here in Australia, Global Village and how often cottage industries and ways of life were falling in the face of the march of Western culture, often advanced by TV and the like. While we think western liberal democracy is the bees knees, what does it carry with it in its essentialist and pragmatic approach to technology that destroys things that are both genuinely other than it (cultures, practices, worldviews and whole ecosystems) and genuinely good?

Technology as emergent

Having just started for the MOOC Edcmooc (E-learning and digital cultures) today, I've been reading about technological determinism and the essentialism some people view technology as having - either democratizing or anti-demoncritizing for example, and the inherent dualism between society and culture on the one hand, and technology on the other. Do digital cultures in and of themselves have a teleology, a direction in which they point.

A book worthy of reading (though I don't buy into all of the metaphysical assumptions) is Stuart Kauffman's Reinventing the sacred. Here, he examines the idea of emergence - the appearance of something genuinely new that could not have readily been predicted or simulated from is component parts (epistemological emergence) and therefore partially lawless and new (ontological emergence).

He gives the example of the tractor. How can you take a huge engine and produce a stable vehicle? Simple, make the engine block the chassis. But who would have thought ahead of time an engine block could serve as a chassis anymore than evolution could have suggested a fish swim bladder would become a pair of lungs?

The point is that given the complexity of the interplay between 'pure technology' and culture, the various histories that form internet technologies and the competing hegemonies and interests, what is has emerged from what was and what will be can only be partially known now. So what will we bring to the table from the cultural/worldview end that will shape digital cultures and elearning for the better?

Does the internet make us virtuous?

I have been wanting to write this post for some time. I need to preface it of course. I first discovered the internet towards the end of 1991. Back then USENET was the thing, internet discussion boards and groups for all manner of topics from the ridiculous to the sublime. Even back then I got hooked to social groups like Alt.Callahans, and even started an (well two quite by accident) interactive fiction group Alt.pub.Dragons-inn and Alt.Dragons-inn. I remember the first graphical browsers like Mozilla and Netscape, writing html raw and thinking WYSIWYG editors were a godsend.

Nowadays I blog, tweet and spend waaay too much time on Facebook, discover new bands on Youtube and occasionally befriend them on MySpace. Why do I stress all of this? Because I want to claim I am a Luddite!

Now Luddites were artisans who thought that their way of life was threatened. I guess in the long run they were right. More broadly, modern Luddites are worried that introduction of technology too quickly or inappropriately is damaging.

Note that this is very different from taking some sort of primitivist stance that says all technology is bad. I don't remember the name of the fellow but it seems he only uses pencils and his web writings are transcribed. So here's my rant.

I teach an theoretical as well as practical subject - meteorology. As well as teaching deep knowledge, we want competent forecasters with skills, knowledge and attitude. The attitude includes due care and dilligence, punctuality, etc. Skills and knowledge are learned but also taught in the usual sense (we give lectures, write material for pracs, tutes, etc) but attitude can only really (in my view) be modelled.

My question is, in our use of Web 2.0, LMSs etc, what attitudes do we model? When we adopt the latest technology to run our new apps, etc - do we model wastefulness? Is it clear our old technology is recycled? I recently read an article that suggested fast broadband was a right, presumably under an extension of eduction as a right. Apart from the whole issue of what human rights are, what they are based on and the hopefully obvious obscenity that someone could call this a right when most of the world starves, etc, a right to what end? Does this model impatience? How much speed is enough (not enough if you are stealing someone else's copyright via Bit Torrent).

Hopefully everyone knows Wikipedia is dubious at times (although also useful). Do we model mediocrity and a distaste for the expert who has invested years of their life in prefering the wisdom of the crowd? And that we won't pay for anything if we can get it for free, no matter the potential risks in quality? I note with some satisfaction Scholarpedia's appearance - free but peer reviewed.

When we encourage mashups, do we model lack of real creativity, just the endless recycling of other people's material? Note I do like mashups to a point, sometimes they speak louder than the creator intended (like the editing of Pulp Fiction into all the occurences of motherf***er).

My point is this - in a world of dwindling resources, isolated plugged in individuals with little sense of history or respect for anything beyond themselves (generalisations I know but spend time on social media), don't we as teachers have to model virtues (rather than impose them yes)? Long gone are the days of the Greeks with small classes and devoted disciples learning ethics with subject matter, etc. But I still think that we want to help students become good citizens and not simply knowledge or skill experts - people who live with vritue.

Ok, so this is a rant and no I am not anti-technology, naively worried about being put out of a job. It is just that not everything that is new is (immediately) useful.

I was a teenage sci fi geek!

Known for its fair share of B-grade literature and films and the attraction of pimply teens with poor social skills, I know of no better genre that examines the post-human future than science fiction. With the appearance of works on the theology and philosophy of science fiction such as Mark Rowlands, author of The Philosopher at the End of the Universe, and many books on The Matrix trilogy - it is a fact that should be appreciated more.

The fundamental question posed when considering the post-human future is ‘What does it mean to be human?’ What is it about our present state that makes us human, and how might that change? There are two major ways in which the question may be addressed. Firstly, how might technology augment human bodies, and secondly, how might or indeed can our technology replace us? The former is addressed by issues of genetic engineering, biomedical advances, interbreeding and cybernetics, the latter typically with robotics.

Ideas of genetic engineering have been around for a long time. The Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World and the movie parody Demolition Man examined a society where procreation is performed in laboratories. Controlling reproduction is about controlling the personalities, characteristics and societal roles of the progeny. Genetic determinism is replaced with a humanistic one. Sex is purely a form of pleasure, although indirectly mediated in Demolition Man by technology to avoid disease. Both stories are dystopic in that people do not have any real free will (or even the illusion of it). Dictatorial governments decide who will be what - and anyone born naturally such as Huxley’s John the savage is outside of normal society. Perhaps the movie Gattica is closer to the mark, where the parent as consumer is the model. In either case, cynicism portrays the post-human future as one where humanity as a whole is not better off in any genuine sense. To allow chance to choose is preferable to human intervention. Something appears to be lost from what it means to be human. Are we comforted in a sense by our imperfections and finitude, or is it simply that we do not trust each other, governments and drug companies. Gene technology is still in its infant stages. The human genome has been sequenced, but we are a long way from understanding how these genes make us who we are. Only time will tell how readily these secrets are unlocked.

The addition or subtraction from human bodies and our identity is explored in the Dr Who episode The End of the World. The last ‘pure human’ is Cassandra, a woman who exists as a flat surface area of skin with a face and nothing else, requiring constant moisturizing. She rails against all those who have become inbred with alien species. What is it that makes her the last ‘pure’ human? This question is tied up ultimately with the telos or end goal of humanity. A purely evolutionary view would undermine Cassandra’s view of herself, since humanity continues to be subject to evolution by natural selection. The idea of purity is a nonsense if humans simply move forward all the time. Humanity is like a river, not a solid block of ice; being in becoming. Telos is something that occupies the very first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Jean Luc Picard is captain of the Starship Enterprise (you probably knew that). Very shortly into their journey he and his crew encounter a being known as Q, part of the Q continuum. Their race is the nearest thing one can get to God. The idea that evolution by natural selection could produce beings that are virtually omnipotent and omniscient was recently discussed in Paul Davies’ book The Goldilocks Enigma. In a later episode (Hide and Q) Picard raises the suggestion with Q that the continuum fears what humanity might become, quoting Shakespeare "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!" How are we to reach this, by natural providence or our own bootstraps? The suggestion that human development should always be upwards is not one that has universally been adopted. The dangers of radiation are well known. In the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on which the movie Bladerunner was based, radiation affects people’s ability to reproduce (hence the fashion of lead cod pieces) or think, reducing some of them to the status of chickenheads. Chickenheads are not allow to reproduce or emigrate off the Earth. They are, in effect sub-humans.

It has been suggested that humans are already cybernetic beings because of our close association with various forms of technology such as the internet and telecommunications. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? this idea is taken a step further with tow devices. The first is the mood organ, a device that can change your mood to anything you like (including the desire to watch TV, no matter what is on). In a post-atomic world slowly decaying into ruins, it would be all too easy to fall into despair. The irony is that the lead character’s wife recognises the futility of it all and chooses an emotion of depression. Authentic humanity in a post-human future appears to be to own our own feelings, to run to and not away from the truth. In a world where belief in the divine has declined, the cult of Mercerism and a device known as an empathy box allow humanity as a whole to share a transcendental experience. Dick’s novel defines humanity on the basis of empathy, separating it from androids. Androids cannot express empathy with anything. An android is able to tear the legs off a spider despite their rarity, to the horror of the chickenhead John Isidore. Ultimately, even those whom society considers sub-human still retain their humanity because not only does Isidore empathise with the spider as another living thing, but also with an android when they are ‘retired’.

An interesting twist on technology and what it means to be human arises in another Philip K. Dick story, We Can Remember it for You Wholesale, on which the movie Total Recall is ‘based’. It centres on the idea of human identity. Who are we? Douglas Quail (Quaid in the movie) visits Rekall in order to have false memories implanted, only for us to discover he already has lived what he wants to have implanted. In Total Recall, is Quaid really Quaid or is he Hauzer, the man who planned Quaid’s invention and designed his implanted memories? They are aspects of the same body, but have totally different memories and different attitudes. On the basis of the memory theory of identity they are different people. So when Quaid was created, Hauzer ceased to exist or at least went to sleep. If we were ever to reach the point where memories could be implanted (although hypnosis and brainwashing have moved in this direction), humanity will become even more liquid than some people suggest it is now. This is taken to the nth degree by examining Cartesian skepticism in The Matrix and sequels. Human experience is totally mediated through technology while we exist as organic batteries.

Cybernetic bad guys feature commonly. The salt shaker shaped Daleks show what happens when evolution is given a helping hand. A seemingly endless war between two humanoid races on the same planet, Thals and Kaleds has produced mutants due to the increasing atmospheric radioactivity. The evil (and yes, mad too) scientist Davros, himself a mutant, uses this as an opportunity to experiment with how radiation affects organisms and what the future of his race might be. This organism requires a transportation vehicle (the familiar salt shaker). In the process, Davros’ inner megalomaniac sees the opportunity for universal conquest and genetically engineers away the emotion of pity - which he later regrets as they wipe out the remaining scientists and attempt to murder him. It raises the interesting question as to whether specific emotions could be engineered away. Pity appears to be an emotion that animals lack (ever seen a cat with a mouse?) but that humans prize (except when it is for yourself, or you are Nietzsche). To be able to remove it would be a backwards step.

Another well known cyborg race are the Borg from the Star Trek series. Their policy is rather like that of many past Australian government to indigenous Australians, one of assimilation. Other cultures, civilizations and races are sources of raw material and information. Like much of today’s trends and fads, although there are external differences in appearance, everyone is the same. The Borg form a collective where individuality is irrelevant. It does not occur to them that other races might, in the words of the Klingon Worf ‘life my species the way it is’. The Borg are less than human in that individuality means nothing and community is deep in its integration but shallow in that unity relies upon diversity. Life is a Borg spaceship is a pale imitation of Christian eschatology. Mobile phones, the internet and other devices allow us to communicate with each other 24-7, but do not extinguish our individuality; yet.

The ultimate fear in science fiction is that humans will be replaced by their own creations; robots. Robots are often pictured as superior, being smarter and stronger than humanity. In I, Robot, the collection of short stories by Isacc Asimov (not the Will Smith movie), the major character and robo-psychologist Dr Susan Calvin finds them preferable to humanity and does not lament the fact that they take over the running of the world. One of the major selling factors of the robot is that they operate purely by logic. However, very often this is shown as a shortcoming and not an asset. In the Dr Who episode The Destiny of the Daleks, it is this logic that sees the robotic races the Daleks and the dreadlock wearing Movellans tied in an eternal deadlock in their war against each other. The android Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation seeks to be more human by trying to learn to move beyond logic and find emotions. Not being programmed to do so, he has to acquire his ‘brothers’ emotion chip to do so. Neural network brains are described as complex, but will an android ever replace us in every way by becoming creatures with complex inner emotional lives? Bladerunner and Terminator 2 answer in the positive whereas Dick in his short story answers in the negative. Robots in Sci Fi vary in shape and size, but their human like shape without the human like emotions and body language give rise is another Dr Who episode (Robots of Death) to the condition of robophobia. In order to deal with the concerns humanity might have with robots seeing us as irrelevant and hence expendable is the three laws of robotics. 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. The stories of I, Robot show how these can come into conflict and create Robot psychosis. What is interesting, if not disturbing is the suggestion by Susan Calvin that these three laws essentially sum up human ethics. The Golden Rule they are not.

Science Fiction is able to pose the sorts of questions we need to be asking now about technology and the post-human future, and as such plays a prophetic role. In not being the pronouncements of futurists, they can be spectacularly wrong and get away with it. That is not the point. The point is that we need to imagine the possibilities. Perhaps there should be more Christians writing Sci Fi, certainly there should be more reading it.

This does not compute!

The Age today carries one of those pieces that requires a little bit of a double take. A Korean couple were recently married with a robot one of them had helped design acting as the MC! See article here. Well, Star Wars has arrived, and a techno couple had C3PO to MC them.

Technology is becoming more pervasive in all aspects of life (hands up who doesn't own a mobile, organiser/PDA, crackberry, IPOD, etc...). I start to wonder, if not worry, when we replace humans qua humans with technology. Now it is one thing to replace humans doing the dirty and the dangerous with a machine, but something as personal as a wedding? True, the MC at my wedding harldy did a stellar job (how own admission), but a machine? Last September, Korean government officials unveiled a high-tech, machine gun-toting sentry robot that could support troops along the heavily fortified border with North Korea. Hmm, this does not compute. Are they any more or any less likely to blow a fuse and go crazy (Full Metal Jacket indeed!)