Remember when you used to be able to get to the end of the Internet?
Good pull quote from the “What questions are no longer asked, and why?” question:
What if we don’t know how to think about the tools we are so skilled at creating? What if we could learn?
Perhaps knowing how to think about technology is a skill we will have to teach ourselves the way we taught ourselves previous new ways of thinking such as mathematics, logic, and science.
–Howard Rheingold
Hmmm. Perhaps it’s just the unavoidable cynic in me (who tends to make appearances on Mondays) but I have an inclination to respond “What if we can’t learn?”
And, actually, I’m really not saying that to be argumentative. I wonder whether or not we who are living through this transformation of culture that technology is causing have the perspective to learn how to think about these new tools.
I suppose it partly depends on how we define “we.” Certainly , I believe that “we” as humans can and will eventually learn how to think about the new tools. But I’m not convinced that the “we” of the here and now really can.
And I’m not sure I buy Rheingold’s assertion that we can compare this experience to the one had during the Enlightenment. That cultural shift (it seems to me) had to do more with a conscious (or deliberate?) alteration of perspective–people set out to look at the world differently. What we are undergoing seems more fundamental to me–the introduction of new tools for living and communicating that we are not necessarily choosing but rather learning to adapt to.
I was talking to someone about a similar topic this weekend: among those who are experiencing this cultural shift now which generation has the greatest capacity to understand what is occuring? The young are limited by the lack of perspective (knowledge of “how things were”). The older are limited by not having grown up “naturally” with this new technology–our experience of it is always one of comparison to and difference from what we knew before.
All of this seems to point me to questions of evolution and adpatation. Can we draw comparisons between how we evolve intellectually as a species and how we evolve physically? If so, we know physically we are a part of the evolutionary chain, but we can only reflect on what has already changed rather than the change of which we are now a part. How does that model play out when we’re discussing psychological/intellectual change?
Thanks for pulling the quote from Rheingold. My opinion, strictly as a practitioner– not a philosopher, is that he often makes too much of his interests, too strongly making the case that the technology and communication tools he has experienced and studied are profound. No doubt that these are having an effect on our lives, but that’s nothing new. I can’t buy the statement that science, mathematics & logic ways of thinking that ‘we’ had to teach ourselves. Their practice, principles, and theories have been with ‘us’ for several thousand years.
G
Getting back to this years question at the Edge Edge, I kinda liked Esther Dyson’s version of Dyson’s Law: “Do ask; don’t lie.” as a practical approach to thinking about and dealing with technology.
I agree regarding Dyson’s Law. I’m not so sure Rheingold is so far off base, though. There have been significant turning points in human history connected with information technologies. He makes a pretty good case in his response to this year’s question. That said, I’m also always sympathetic to the enduring concerns side of the argument, too.