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THE FUTURE DOES NOT COMPUTE Transcending the Machines in Our Midst Stephen L.

Talbott
Acknowledgments. Chapter 1. Can Human Ideals Survive the Internet? The Internet has become the most highly per ected means yet or the scattering o the sel beyond recall. !nless we can recollect ourselves in the presence o our intelligent arti acts" we have no uture. #A$T 1. %A&" C'%#!T($S" A&) C'%%!&IT* Chapter +. The %achine in the ,host The one sure thing about the computer-s uture is that we will behold our own re lection in it. .hat I really ear is the hidden and increasingly power ul machine within /us/" o which the machines we create are an outward e0pression. %achines become a threat when they embody our limitations without our being ully aware o those limitations. Chapter 1. The 2uture )oes &ot Compute Computers will do us no good i they shape our thinking so thoroughly to the past that our courage ails us when it comes time to break the machine and declare or the un3usti iable. Chapter 4. Settlers in Cyberspace The lone Chinese standing in ront o a tank on Tienanmen S5uare symboli6ed the act that something in the human being 77 some remaining spark o innocence and hope and bravery 77 held more promise or the uture o society than all the mechanisms o raw" earthly power. Chapter 8. 'n 9eing $esponsible or (arth I we trash the current technology without changing our habits o mind" we will simply invent a new prison or ourselves using whatever materials are at hand. 9ut i we /can/ change ourselves" then :erry %ander-s argument that many technological products have a i0ed" irremediable bias and should there ore be shunned loses its validity. Chapter ;. &etworks and Communities It is not particularly surprising that in a culture widely cited or its loss o community" the word <community< itsel should come in or heavy use. The more we lack something" the more we may be ascinated by ragmentary glimpses o it. Chapter =. At the 2ringe o 2reedom It is strange that in a society ounded so centrally on the creative initiative and reedom o the individual" we should today ind this same individual so utterly helpless be ore the most urgent social problems. Chapter >. Things That $un by Themselves The power o the computer7based organi6ation to sustain itsel in a semisomnambulistic manner" ree o conscious" /present/ control 77 while yet maintaining a certain internal" logical coherence 77 is increasing to a degree we have scarcely begun to athom. Chapter ?. )o .e $eally .ant a ,lobal @illage? #erhaps it is merely a ghastly sense or the ironic that prompts us to hail the birth o the global village 3ust as villages around the world are sel 7destructing. 9ut could it be that what we so eagerly welcome" unawares" are the powers o dissolution themselves? Chapter 1A. Thoughts on a ,roup Support System The distortions and constraints o group support so tware can help us answer the 5uestion" <.hat distinguishes the human7centered organi6ation rom a mechanism?< Chapter 11. In Summary The attempt to sum the advantages and disadvantages associated with computers is itsel a sign o how ar we have already succumbed to the computational paradigm. .hereas my own strong predilection is to /argue the acts/" I should instead seek to /awaken/. Awakenings prepare the way or a new uture" and or di erent acts. #A$T +B C'%#!T($S I& ()!CATI'& Chapter 1+. &et7based Cearning Communities I I need to ind out whether a child will become a good world citi6en" don-t show me a ile o her email correspondence. :ust let me observe her behavior on the playground or a ew minutes. Chapter 11. Impressing the Science out o Children There is a di erence between <special e ects wonder< and the true wonder that leads toward a devout scienti ic curiosity. The latter grows rom an awareness o one-s immediate connection to the world 77 rom a sense that the inner essence o what one is looking at is somehow connected to the inner essence o onesel . Chapter 14. Children o the %achine Through education based on computer programming" the child loses 77 never having ully developed it in the irst place 77 that luid" imaginative ability to let e0perience reshape itsel in meaning ul ways be ore she carves out o it a set o atomic acts. #A$T 1. TH( (C(CT$'&IC .'$) Chapter 18. )ancing with %y Computer
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Have you noticed the typing habits o computer engineers? Chapter 1;. The Tyranny o the )etached .ord It is di icult to resist the pull o the computer away rom active thinking and toward mere association" convention" and ormal abstraction. Chapter 1=. The ,reat In ormation Hunt It really is ama6ing" this odd ac5uisitiveness with which hordes o academics" engineers" cyberpunks" and sel 7advertised <in onauts< roam the &et" looking or treasure7troves o in ormation" like so much gold. They hear the cry 77 <There-s in ormation in them thar nodesD< 77 and the rush is on. Chapter 1>. And the .ord 9ecame %echanical /Seeming/ to be alien" a hollow physical token and nothing more" approaching us only as a powerless shape rom without" the word nevertheless has its way with us. .e detach the word rom ourselves and it overpowers us rom the world. Chapter 1?. Cistening or the Silence The rightening prospect or so7called cyberspace is that it will ade into a mere dis3unction o sub3ective universes as each o us encases himsel within a solipsistic cocoon. #A$T 4. '.(& 9A$2I(C)" C'%#!T($S" A&) TH( (@'C!TI'& '2 C'&SCI'!S&(SS Chapter +A. Awaking rom the #rimordial )ream 'ur awareness sharpens" becoming clearer and more wake ul" by virtue o its contraction rom the periphery 77 rom dream7like entanglement in the world 77 to a ocused center. 9ut the uttermost center o a circle is a null point. %ight we become so radically detached rom the surrounding world that we can no longer ind our way back to it? %ight we" in the end" wake up to nothing at all? Chapter +1. %ona Cisa-s Smile 9ehind the success o every new Stephen Eing movie" every advance in special e ects" is there a secret hope and ear that the e ects might somehow burst through into reality" and that some ancient Harpy might suddenly reach out and /grab/ us? Is it our real yearning simply to become /alive/ again" and to know the world as living? Chapter ++. Seeing in #erspective )id ,od create the world in linear perspective? Chapter +1. Can .e Transcend Computation? The decisive limits upon machine intelligence were clari ied early in this century by 'wen 9ar ield-s study o language. Chapter +4. (lectronic %ysticism Scholars and engineers hover like winged angels over a high7tech cradle" singing the algorithms and structures o their minds into silicon receptacles" and eagerly nurturing the irst glimmers o intelligence in the machine7child. 'r are they instead draining the sources o wisdom rom their own minds? Chapter +8. .hat This 9ook .as About A more orderly attempt to sum things up. A##(&)IC(S Appendi0 A. 'wen 9ar ieldB The (volution o Consciousness /How/ we think is at least as important as /what/ we think. Appendi0 9. 2rom @irtual to $eal .e are surrounded with e0teriors into which we have breathed our own peculiar interiors. That is what virtual realities are. 9ut that" 9ar ield urges us to remember" is also what the physical world is. Appendi0 C. (ducation .ithout Computers FAn introduction to .aldor education.G The true human capacities pass through dramatic trans ormations. .hat we sow in the child must sink down into his being in seedlike child7 orms be ore it can emerge again" mature" and lower into an adult capacity. 9ibliography. Selected Reviews .here < ullte0t< is indicated" ollow the linkH otherwise" only air7use e0cerpts are provided here. The library 3ournal" Choice F:anuary" 1??=G selected The Future Does Not Compute as one o its si0 <'utstanding Academic 9ooks< or 1??; in the ield o In ormation and Computer Science.< J. Mayer, Choice, May, 1996 Talbott-s important" seminal work should be read by everyone working with computers....His penetrating discussions o works by H. $heingold" ,. ,ilder" and S. #apert are models o dispassionate analysis. This short review cannot do 3ustice to the scope and depth o this irst critical study o computers since :. .ei6enbaum-s Computer Power and Human Reason. Stephen Horvath, Logos--The Jo rna! of the "or!# $oo% Co&& nity, vo!. 11, iss e ', '000 There are many words77comple0" eccentric" thought ul" stimulating" perple0ing" penetrating77suitable to describe this challenging book" suitable but inade5uate. It is a deep e0egesis Fat times very deepG o the problem o man-s relationship to computer7based technology and its mani estations77the Internet" digital images" virtual reality and as a medium o entertainment and communication. The author sums up his brie early onB <.e and our mechanical o spring are bound together in an increasingly tight weave. To
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substantially modi y the larger pattern 77 rather than simply be carried along by it 77 re5uires pro ound analysis o things not immediately evident" and a di icult e ort to change things not easily changed.< Mi!es ()*ea!, +ni, -evie.)s /$est $oo%s of 1990,/ Jan ary, 1996 Talbott tears apart all the standard conceptions and misconceptions and gets down to basics 77 the meaning o thingsH the di erences between data" in ormation" and wisdomH how people communicate and interact 77 and builds his discussion logically and art ully. .hile I disagree with some o his conclusions" Talbott challenged many o my assumptions and long7held eelings about the roles o the Internet and computers in my li e. He does this better than anyone has in a long time. Phi!o&ena ()$rien, *e. Scientist, 1 g st 19, 1990 There is a sense o e0citement in books o this typeB they are accessible to nonscientists without sacri icing essential rigor. Cike Stephen Hawking-s A Brief History of Time" we read them with the same enthusiasm with which we once read 3ournals o literature and the arts.... Talbott shows an impressive grasp o the breathless pace o change in our society that computers have wrought. He discusses their application against an array o 5uestions concerning human relations" cultural identity" the machineImind inter ace" and the uture o computer science.... A very thought ul book" i a pessimistic one. Stephanie Sy&an, -o!!ing Stone, *ove&2er, 1990 (very revolution has its detractors" and the digital revolution has spawned a cottage industry o anti7technology polemics. .hile some o these smack o sentimentalism or" worse" posit a rose7tinted vision o predigital society" JThe 2uture )oes &ot ComputeK takes a more balanced look at the downside o in ormation technologies. Stephen C. Talbott...is interested in how computers re lect our values" and his essays revolve around such 5uestions asB Can human ideals survive the Internet? Is arti icial intelligence raising machines to a human level" or are we descending to the machines- level?...JThis bookK should be re5uired reading or both &etheads and neophytes. "i!!ia& T. "a!%er, History Co&p ter -evie., Spring, 1996 In this important and provocative book Stephen Talbott advances a myriad o substantive 5uestions relating to the ascendancy o technology" its impact on the individual and society" and" most importantly" the interrelationship between man and machines....The scope o Talbott-s study and his ormulation o reasoned and culturally aware arguments is a tribute to his intelligence and the range o his interests. 3ric Ce!este, Jo rna! of 1ca#e&ic Li2rarianship, J !y-1 g st, 1996 Talbott takes a long" hard" deep look at the computer-s threat to society. #erhaps it is no surprise that such a penetrating e0amination leads back to ourselves. Talbott-s book is not 3ust a warning" it is a vision o hope. Talbott argues that we must awaken to the ways our thinking have been ormed and de ormed by our close association with computers. 'nly i we are awake can we reconnect with oursleves" and trans orm our world. 4on 4 g#a!e, +ni5or &)s 6T So! tions, 5e2r ary, 1996 Talbott-s view is both chilling and inspiring....The curious reader will become so wrapped up in JhisK penetrating analysis that it will be impossible not to inish the book.....ithout considering JthisK analysis" no one who is serious about the uture can consider himsel or hersel as advancing with open eyes into the In ormation Age. M. 3. 7Peggy8 Cathcart, Technica! Co&& nication, Secon# 9 arter, 1996 Talbott-s book should be read or the insights it brings" the beauty o the language" and its re erences to other literature on language and technology. -ichar# Mateosian, 6333 Micro, 4ece&2er, 1990 Talbott-s ideas aren-t all new" but many o them are new to me. It makes the book slow reading. %y review doesn-t begin to do 3ustice to it. Talbott has thought hard about problems we all ace but ew o us want to think about. Take some time out o your busy li e to read this book. Ja&es 4a!:ie!, CMC Maga:ine, 4ece&2er 1, 1990 ullte0t -ay 4 ncan, 4r. 4o22)s Jo rna!, 4ece&2er, 1990 Talbott-s book is the philosophical descendant o :oseph .ei6enbaum-s landmark work" Computer Power and Human Reason....It is thought ul" learned" and provocative.... I will say be ore anything else that I strongly urge all o you to buy and read this book. I was especially impressed with Talbott-s analysis o computer7based education in general" and Seymour #apert in particular. C ; , Septe&2er, 1990

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This is not the type o book that I have come to e0pect rom '-$eilly L Associates but it well deserves its place beside the technical books on which they have built their reputation. This is one o those books that generate a sense o dis5uiet in the reader where all was previously bliss.... %ake the time to read this book" you owe it to yoursel as well as to the uture. C!iff Sto!!, a thor of Si!icon Sna%e (i! .hy do computers rustrate instead o satis y? .hat do we lose when we sign onto the net? How come the Internet doesn-t deliver the goods? .ith a care ul eye to detail" Stephen Talbott looks over the culture o computing" inding both aggravation and com ortH hope and despair.< =evin H nt, CMC Maga:ine ullte0t J #i =-T r%e! an# 5ran%!ynn Peterson, 1ri:ona $ siness >a:ette, 1 g st <1, 1990 .e can count on two or three ingers the times" in our 1+AA columns" that we-ve devoted an entire article to reviewing one book. 9ut Stephen C. Talbott-s The Future Does Not Compute is such an important book. It needs to be read and discussed by business leaders" parents" educators and everyone else who lets the computer on the desk touch or in orm or govern decision7making. $ siness Life 73 rope8, (cto2er, 1990 Stephen Talbott-s The Future Does Not Compute is an antidote to much o the triumphalism o techno7enthusiasts. 2irmly rooted in the real world" Talbott does not su er ools....Talbott-s breadth o thought 77 rom :ung to obscure 6oologists 77 makes or a demanding" but worthwhile" read. Cast revisionB Oct 1 ! 1""#

4 st Jac%et 5!ap Te,t Many p n#its te!! yo that the co&p ter is shering s to.ar# a ne. >o!#en 1ge of 6nfor&ation. 1 fe. te!! yo that the co&p ter is #estroying everything .orth.hi!e in o r c !t re. $ t a!&ost no one te!!s yo .hat Stephen L. Ta!2ott sho.s in this s rprising 2oo%? the inte!!igent &achine gathers its &enacing po.ers fro& hi##en p!aces .ithin yo an# &e. 6t #oes so, that is, as !ong as .e ga:e into o r screens an# tap on o r %ey2oar#s .hi!e !ess than f !!y conscio s of the s 2t!e inf! ences passing thro gh the interface. Ta!2ott a.a%ens s to these inf! ences 2y con# cting a .i#e-ranging to r? "hy #o .e hai! the 2irth of the e!ectronic g!o2a! vi!!age @ st as vi!!agers aro n# the .or!# are %i!!ing each otherA 6s the *et an instr &ent for socia! #isso! tionA 4o the -enaissance origins of virt a! rea!ity thro. !ight on o r .or!#-creating an# .or!#-#estroying choices to#ayA 4oes rea!ity have a f t reA "ere the 2arriers to creation of thin%ing &achines c!arifie# 2y a !itt!e-%no.n phi!o!ogist investigating the &ythic conscio sness of the ancientsA 4oes the co&p ter centra!i:e or #ecentra!i:e str ct res of po.erA (r #oes this B estion &iss the point, 2eca se inte!!igent &achines that r n 2y the&se!ves are creating a ne. g!o2a! tota!itarianis& without a despotic centerA 6s the frantic rging to p t schoo!chi!#ren on the 6nternet any &ore reasone# than the Seventies) fa# for progra&&e# instr ction, or the 3ighties) fa# for co&p ter !iteracyA 4oes an nrecogni:e# !a. !in% the p 2!ic face an# the #ar% n#ersi#e of the *etA 6f so, can .e e,pect f!a&e .ars, .eir# i&personations, pornographic co&&erce, an# *et psychoses to gro. increasing!y prono nce# an# erratic, .hi!e at the sa&e ti&e the reasone# &echanis&s for fi!tering /strict 2 siness/ fro& the chaos stea#i!y gain in effectivenessA 6s artificia! inte!!igence raising &achines to a h &an !eve!, or are .e #escen#ing to the &achine)s !eve!A

1fter rea#ing The Future Does Not Compute, yo .i!! never again 2e a2!e to sit in front of yo r co&p ter .ith B ite the sa&e g!a:e# stare. Stephen L. Ta!2ott .ent fro& Presi#entia! Scho!ar to far&er, an# fro& e#iting an inter#iscip!inary, scho!ar!y @o rna! a2o t the catastrophist theories of 6&&an e! ;e!i%ovs%y, to 1C years .or%ing in the co&p ter in# stry. 5or the past fe. years he has 2een a senior e#itor at ()-ei!!y D 1ssociates, p 2!ishers. Mr. Ta!2ott recent!y &ove# .ith his fa&i!y fro& the $oston techno!ogy 2e!t to r ra! *e. Eor%, .here his efforts to reach an acco&&o#ation .ith his co&p ter contin e.
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$ac%cover Te,t "hy #o co&p ters fr strate instea# of satisfyA "hat #o .e !ose .hen .e sign onto the netA Ho. co&e the 6nternet #oesn)t #e!iver the goo#sA "ith a caref ! eye to #etai!, Stephen Ta!2ott !oo%s over the c !t re of co&p ting, fin#ing 2oth aggravation an# co&fortF hope an# #espair./ C!iff Sto!!, a thor of Silicon Snake Oil The techno!ogica! 4@inn, no. !oose# fro& a!! restraints, te&pts s .ith visions of a s rrea! f t re. 6t is a f t re .ith ro2ots .ho s rpass their &asters in #e,terity an# .itF inte!!igent agents .ho roa& the *et on o r 2eha!f, see%ing the infor&ationa! e!i,ir that .i!! &a%e s .ho!eF ne. co&& nities inha2iting the c!ean, infinite reaches of cy2erspace, free# fro& .ar an# conf!ictF an# !en#ing !i2raries of /virt a!!y rea!/ e,periences that see& &ore sensationa! than the rea! thing. *ot a!! of this is i#!e or fantastic spec !ation -- even if it is the rather stan#ar# g sh a2o t o r co&p teri:e# f t re. 5e. o2servers can see any c!ear !i&its to .hat the net.or%e# co&p ter &ight event a!!y acco&p!ish. 6t is this st nning, .i#e-open potentia! that !ea#s one to .on#er .hat the 4@inn .i!! as% of s in ret rn for the gift. 1fter a!!, any potentia! so #ra&atic, so #iverse, so universal, can 2e ta%en in &any #irections. That is its very nat re. "ho .i!! choose the #irection -- .e, or the 4@innA The inte!!igent &achine receives a sha#o. of o r o.n inte!!igence. This sha#o. consists of a!! the co!!ective, a to&atic, s!eep.a!%ing, #eter&inistic processes .e have yie!#e# to. That is, it consists of o r o.n .i!!ingness to 2eco&e &achines. The cr cia! B estion to#ay is .hether .e can .a%e p in ti&e. (n!y in .a%ef !ness can .e #isting ish o rse!ves fro& the a to&atis&s aro n# s. "here .e re&ain as!eep -- .here .e !ive in o r o.n sha#o. -- .e are the 4@inn. The *et is the &ost po.erf ! invitation to re&ain as!eep .e have ever face#. Contrary to the s a! vie., it #.arfs te!evision in its po.er to in# ce passivity, to scatter o r &in#s, to #estroy o r i&aginations, an# to &a%e s forget o r h &anity. 1n# yet -- for these very reasons -- the *et &ay a!so 2e an opport nity to enter into o r f !!est h &anity .ith a se!f-a.areness never yet achieve#. $ t fe. even see& a.are of the cha!!enge, an# .itho t a.areness .e .i!! certain!y fai!. Acknowledgments The most di icult thing to acknowledge is all the authors I ought to have read but have not. In my e0traordinarily slow and plodding program o study" I have yet to catch up with many works orming the <standard background< or the discussion I have attempted here. A good e0ample o this bibliographic gap is Theodore $os6ak-s classic" The Cu$t of %nformation Fre7issued with a lengthy new introduction in 1??4G. I have indeed read this book 77 but only during the last checking o page proo s be ore going to press. .here I would surely have adverted to $os6ak many times in these pages" I have in act only managed a last7minute ootnote. 'ther worthy scholars must remain altogether unnoted. ' those who read various versions o the manuscript" in whole or in part" and gave me valuable comments Fnot always heededG" I mention especially )avid 2lanagan" $ob Eling" Cowell %onke" Andy 'ram" ,erald #hillips" Christian Sweningsen" Tom Talbott" Stuart .eeks" 2rank .illison" and :e .right. )avid Sewell reviewed the entire manuscript" o ering numerous help ul stylistic suggestions. His care ul eye taught me how much I have still to learn about editing. Among my e0traordinary colleagues at '-$eilly L Associates" (die 2reedman designed the coverH &ancy #riest handled the interior designH Cenny %uellner" constrained by a shortened schedule" implemented the design in so twareH Seth %aislin o ered great" last7 minute advice on the principles o inde0ingH and Clairemarie 2isher '-Ceary and Eismet %c)onough7Chan" with their ever discerning eyes" assisted in the inal production o the book. Sheryl Avruch managed the whole process" and the entire crew put out the kind o dedicated e ort and long hours that cannot be re&uired o anyone. Special thanks are owing to Tim '-$eilly" president o '-$eilly L Associates" who is not only my publisher and editor" but also my employer. Tim read through the manuscript several times" o ering incisive commentary and helping me ind my way 77 o ten hollering and clawing at the keyboard 77 toward a proper balance. )espite the act that my views are not his views" he devoted ar more o his resources toward enabling me to write this book than he has any reasonable hope o recovering. He believed the book is important. That stance o conviction symboli6es a good part o the reason why I work or '-$eilly L Associates. I am indebted above all to a man whom I have met only through his published writingsB 'wen 9ar ield. It was no small part o my hope in producing this book that it might introduce a ew people to 9ar ield-s work who might otherwise never encounter it. The risk is that such a brie e0posure as I can give here not only may ail to lay bare the heart o 9ar ield-s accomplishment FI take this or grantedG" but or that reason may encourage readers to pigeonhole 9ar ield along with one or another more amiliar thinker.
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Certainly 9ar ield does say some things that many others have been saying. 9ut the pigeonholing 5uickly misleads. The core insights underlying all his work remain among the most original scholarly achievements o this century. So original" in act" that these insights are still largely <impossible< to accept 77 even impossible to thin'. 'ne has to escape the most deeply ingrained" least conscious habits o modern thought in order to entertain the ull import o what 9ar ield is saying. This is not easy to do" so that the tendency is to take him as merely repeating a more conventional wisdom. &o one" however" who has once wrestled through to a close understanding o (avin) the Appearances or *or$ds Apart will ever again be able to stand within the intellectual traditions o our culture in 5uite the same way as be ore. T. S. (liot said o *or$ds Apart that it is <an e0cursion into seas o thought which are very ar rom ordinary routes o intellectual shipping.< I have spent some seventeen years trying to ollow 9ar ield on that e0cursion 77 with only partial" i nevertheless satis ying" success. )uring most o those seventeen years I was working with computers" and it slowly became clear to me that the central issues bedeviling all o us who try to understand the relation between the human being and the computer are issues upon which 9ar ield began throwing light some seven decades ago. The Future Does Not Compute is my attempt to re lect a little o that light toward the reader. Can Human Ideals Survive the Internet? Social healing" it seems" approaches us rom the Internet. I the hopes clustered about this miraculous" Hydra7headed gi t o the in ormation age are ul illed" it will bring us e0tended democracy" personal liberation" enhanced powers o organi6ation and coordination" renewal o community" in ormation transmuted into wisdom" education reed rom the grip o pedagogical tyranny" a new and wondrous comple0ity arising rom chaos 77 and much more. Can any gi t prove dangerous while acting as such an e0traordinary magnet or every conceivable ideal? It is at least curious" given the bright light o idealism ocused upon the Internet" that its actual development should have proceeded largely according to a dim" scarcely conscious" technical logic. The <intrinsic necessities< o its growth seem to derive as much rom the technical machinery-s insistence upon its own" natural articulations as rom any choosing on our partB ' ten hailed as an unparalleled weapon against the establishment" the Internet actually grew out o a scheme or making military communications more secure. The Internet-s original purposes were centered on the e0change o technical data. Its unctions were so thoroughly e5uated with calculation and computation in the narrowest sense that" until these last ew years" any distinctively social activity Fcourting" political activism" the ormation o communitiesG was considered sensationally newsworthy. Today" on the other hand" many observers routinely promote the Internet as a means or salvaging the primacy o personal relationship and community in a depersonali6ed society. &ow eared by some as a per ected instrument o commercialism and regimentation" the Internet was" until 5uite recently" a daytripping playground or hippies reincarnated as engineers 77 a playground governed" or e0ample" by the sort o anti7 commercial spirit driving the 2ree So tware 2oundation.

<Again and again"< writes Howard $heingold" <the most important parts o the &et piggybacked on technologies that were created or very di erent purposes"< yielding what he calls <the accidental history o the &et.< I1I Huge corporations have allen rom grace because they did not oresee the twists and turns in this strange" unpredictable evolution. And" o course" foreseein) is all most o us can hope or. %arketing departments try to steal a glimpse o what may happen one or two years ahead" and ind little reason to consider what ou)ht to happen. The underlying technical tra3ectory is what it is. High7tech irms hire consultants as prognosticators" not as wise counselors assessing the human condition and its needs. So the Internet For" simply" <the &et<G grows like wild ire" and everything 3ust seems to happen. &et sur ers re3oice and give ritual thanks or the e0hilarating monthly growth igures 77 so many new sites" so many new users" so many new accesses to popular databases 77 apparently taking all this <success< as evidence that the gods o cyberspace are with us. 9ut i there is indeed some sort o embodied wisdom at work in the machinery o growth" one wonders e0actly whose wisdom it might be. Are our ideals being reali6ed? It is hard to imagine any truly human aspiration whose ul illment <3ust happens.< Surely every ideal worthy o the name can be reali6ed only through some sort o conscious stru))$e and achievement. Ideals arise in thought 77 our very highest" morally ervent thought 77 and thereby become goals toward which we can strive creatively. 'nly a machine reali6es its aims automatically" and there ore its aims are not ideals. I " on the other hand" the &et develops by a mechanistic and distinctly nonidealistic logic o its own" one might e0pect its evolution to ollow neatly predictable lines. Cogic" a ter all" is supposed to yield predictability. 9ut this is not trueH the logic may" in the irst place" prove too comple0 to grasp. And it may also be the case FI believe it is the caseG that what we have been imparting to the &et 77 or what the &et has been eliciting rom us 77 is a hal 7submerged" barely intended logic" contaminated by wishes and tendencies we pre er not to acknowledge. This book is an attempt to bring those tendencies to the ull light o consciousness" so that we can choose our uture rather than compute it automatically and unawares. &ot that reedom to choose brings predictabilityH it most certainly does not. It only makes us responsible. 9ut out o that responsibility we can impose a worthy meanin) upon the uture. The alternative to our doing so 77 the
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alternative to reely embraced meaning 77 is the abstractly patterned" manipulable emptiness o the in ormational machine. This" too" derives rom the human being 77 but only rom those places within us where we have long been adapting ourselves to the machine-s relentless and increasingly subtle imperatives. &o ideals can survive there. 5ata!is& an# hope There is more than one way to poison the soil in which pro ound ideals might otherwise lourish. The most obvious blight" perhaps" results rom the kind o cynicism or atalism that prevents germination in the irst place. This shows itsel " or e0ample" in the re5uent assumption that power ul commercial interests 77 corporate <big money< 77 must unavoidably subvert the &et-s liberating potentials in avor o the crass pro iteering whose results are so vivid in the television wasteland. 'n such an assumption" how you and I manage our choices Fwhether as corporate employees or as consumersG counts or nothing at all. 9ut ideals can be destroyed by e0cessive hope as well. The plant oversupplied with arti icial ertili6er may show rapid" impressive progress" but its growth is rank" weak" and unsustainable. The irst good rain will lay it lat. Similarly" much o the enthusiasm or the &et as an agent o desirable social change betrays an arti icially rein orced hope. The ollowing paragraphs" which circulated on the &et in 1??4" illustrate this enthusiasm in an e0treme orm. They were part o a recruitment campaign or a movement calling itsel )igitaCiberty. )igitaCiberty believes that technology can set us ree. The economies o the developed world are now making a ma3or transition rom an industrial base to an in ormation base. As they do" the science o cryptology will inally and orever guarantee the unbreachable right o privacy" protecting individuals" groups" and corporations rom the prying eyes and grasping hands o sovereigns. .e will all be ree to conduct our lives" and most importantly our economic relations" as we each see it. Cyberspace is also in initely e0tensible. There will be no brutal competition or lebensraum. %ultiple virtual communities can e0ist side by side and without destructive con lict" each organi6ed according to the principles o their members. .e seek only to build one such community" a community based on individual liberty. 'thers are ree to build communities based on other principles" even diametrically opposed principles. 9ut they must do so without our coerced assistance. ( ective communities will thrive and grow. )ys unctional communities will wither and die. And or the irst time in human history" rapacious societies will no longer have the power to make war on their neighbors nor can bankrupt communities take their neighbors down with them. I+I Ideals in the abstract .hatever one makes o the obvious naivete in this discarnate utopianism" it must be admitted that the notions strung together here have become &et commonplacesB we-re entering an in ormation ageH cryptography or the masses will guarantee a universal right o privacyH community is moving onlineH the &et prevents social coercion and con lictH and somehow what is best in cyberspace always survives" while the in erior withers away. There are two things to say about the )igitaCiberty appeal. 2irst" it e0trapolates the human uture rom purely technical considerations. <Technology can set us ree.< $espect or the privacy and individuality o another person is" on such a view" captured in the idea o an uncrackable code given by the tools o communication. Cikewise" the boundaries o community can neatly be traced in &etwork diagrams. And social evolution is patterned a ter technological development" wherein newer" better" more sophisticated products inevitably replace older" more primitive ones. Second" such a recasting o social issues as technological ones points to a thoroughgoing habit o abstraction. *hat can +e mapped from the human +ein) to a machine is a$ways and on$y an a+straction. 'ne cannot embrace a device as the midwi e o reedom without having lost sight o the living" ambiguous reality o reedom as an e0perience o alternative" inner stances. All that is le t is an abstract shadow o these stances" in the orm o e0ternal" machine7mediated <options.< .here reedom once re5uired the ate ul e0ercise o an enlightened" heart7warmed will" it is now enough to play with clickable choices on a screen. This habit o abstraction shows up clearly in a thinking that reconceives privacy as something like a technically shielded anonymity. Such thinking notwithstanding" the act remains that we must have to do with each other in the normal course o our lives 77 we must know each other 77 and there ore any genuine privacy can only be rooted in a deep and sensitive mutual respect. &o technical gadgets can underwrite this sort o intimate respectH they can easily make it more di icult. The alternative to intimate respect 77 already suggested by all7too7 visible tendencies 77 is to isolate ourselves ever more rom each other" taking re uge behind uncertain" shi ting personas" remote orms o communication" and anonymous transactions" which we then call <human reedom.< This can only lead to an abstract <society< o automatons" inputs" and outputs. It may not matter whether you and I are really there" behind the machinery o interaction" but at least we will know ourselves to be reeD

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We yield to automatic side effects I have spoken o both atalism and breathy idealism" and I have pointed out that at least some o the idealism currently su using cyberspace is linked to F1G an anthropomorphism that con uses technical capabilities with human 5ualitiesH and F+G a habit o abstraction through which inner 5ualities such as personal respect disappear into mechanisms. The interesting thing is that these two characteristics o &et7 centered idealism apply 3ust as well to the atalistic view that big" sel 7 interested corporations must necessarily co7opt the &et-s promise o a better society. 2or this atalism arises" however 5uestionably" rom an incontestable actB the large corporation today" recogni6ed in law as a kind o nonpersonal person" operates rather like a computer. That is" it mechanically calculates and ma0imi6es the bottom line" without particular re erence to anything other than mathematical FmonetaryG <values.< Here again we see both anthropomorphism Fthe corporation as personG and a highly abstract" mechanical re lection o a distinctly human activity 77 in this case" the activity re5uired or embodying the va$ues o truth" goodness" and beauty through productive activity. 'ptimists" o course" assume that higher values will somehow arise rom purely commercial" computational activity as an automatic side e ect" much as computation proper is supposed to deliver on the ideals o reedom" privacy" and the rest. The pessimists" on the other hand" simply read the automatic side e ects di erentlyB power and wealth will be concentrated in the hands o a ewH morality" esthetic concerns" the environment" and health will be sacri iced or pro itsH the alignment o big business and big government will s5uee6e out the <little guy<H and so on. 9ut the important thing or the moment is what both optimists and pessimists agree uponB the corporation is a mechanism operating with a li e o its own" delivering its reight o good or ill independently o the inner 5ualities" the choices 77 the ideals 77 o its larger human constituency. And the decisive act is thisB such automatic side e ects" whatever their nature" can on$y be destructive in the long run" since they testi y to an abdication o consciousness. This abdication is the characteristic temptation presented by the intelligent automaton 77 whether the automaton is a computer" an unre lective business organi6ation" or the intensi ying computational bias within us that irst made possible the computer-s invention. .e are" in matters large and small" increasingly given the option o <running on automatic.< This is true in our inancial a airs FAT% transactionsG" our personal relationships Femail supported by automatic document processing so twareG" our vocations Fwhich now" with ever greater subtlety" we can reduce to unconscious algorithm7 ollowingG" and our purely stimulative" re le07based entertainment Fvideo games" shock7value moviesG. To run on automatic is" or the human being" to sink toward instinct" un reedom" and statistical predictability. It is to give up what sets us most vitally apart rom our material environment and our tools. It is to remain asleep in our highest capacities. .hether our ideals can survive depends 77 beyond all pessimism and optimism vested in automatic processes 77 on whether we can consciously take hold o the mechanisms around us and within us" and raise them into the service o what is most ully human because most ully awake. The irst prere5uisite is to recogni6e the severity o the challenge. The scattere# se!f Anyone who has been in a position to observe the brie " intense history o the Internet will certainly have noticed the wild swings o online sentiment" rom utopian ervor to crashing disillusionment and back again. .hen a ew agitated email messages leaked out o $ussia during an abortive coup" the Internet became" by most accounts" an irresistible weapon to save the world or democracy. F#resumably" the Chechens whose deaths graced this morning-s newspaper were too late getting their Internet accountsG. 'n the other hand" let the !nited States government pass a law to permit wiretapping in everyone-s beloved cyberspace" and immediate visions o a worse7than79ig79rother begin dancing through our heads. This ping7ponging between e0tremes does not suggest that much work is being done at the realistic level where ideals can be urthered. (very ideal demands a persistent" long7term work upon my own nature" as I stand embedded in society. The di iculties o this social immersion77 or e0ample" the personal rictions" antagonisms" and rustrations 77 are the occasion or most o the work. Anyone who has understood and accepted this work cannot be moved very much by the technological and political shi ts that alternately bring ecstasies o hope and paro0ysms o ear. The vacillating" ungrounded idealism o the &et points us toward an important actB the corre$ate of the mechanism or automaton is the scattered se$f. To understand this" it may help to think o the psychoanalyst-s couch. It is 3ust when the patient abandons his conscious unctioning in avor o the most automatic" re le0ive responses" that his <output< becomes helter7skelter" scattered" irrational" yet predictable in the merely associational terms characteristic o a lowered consciousness In other words" the level where we act most mechanistically and unconsciously is the level where coherent meaning is shattered into those suggestive shards that the analyst F rom a higher and more conscious viewpointG must painstakingly try to reassemble into a meaning ul story. The e ort is not always success ul. And even i it is" it does the patient no good unless he" too" can eventually arrive at something like the analyst-s higher understanding" begin to integrate his li e around it" and then choose his uture in ull responsibility.
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A failure to digest things It is hardly novel to comment on the personal scattering so readily induced by modern culture. )aily newspapers present my sweeping glance with a collage o the most dissonant images and stories imaginable" each allocated a ew inches o space" a ew moments o my time. The su ering in some A rican war immediately yields to an over3oyed lottery winner" who in turn gives way to a dispute in the city council" ollowed by survey results on American se0ual habits. The weather" comics" sports" book reviews 77 scanning all this is how I prepare to meet the day ahead. %y attention" rather than engaging problems at hand in a deepening meditation" is casually" almost unnoticeably dispersed. In a similar way" the television sound bite has become notoriousH so" too" the di66ying succession o images in movie and music video. %aga6ines and billboards" the chatter o boombo0es and the endless miles o retail aisleways heaped with a iendishly beguiling array o merchandise77 all compete or a moment-s subliminal notice rom an otherwise absent sub3ect" so that someone else-s intentions can have their way with me. (verything is calculated to prevent my standing irmly within mysel " choosing my own way in conscious sel 7 possession. Ce t helpless to digest much o anything in particular" I have no choice but to let go and move with the low" allowing it to carry me wherever it will. The critical law at work here is that whatever I take in without having ully digested it 77 whatever I receive in less than ull consciousness77 does not there ore lose its ability to act upon me. It simply acts rom beyond the margins o my awareness. &othing is orgottenH it is only neglected. This is as true o %u6ak as o the ilm image" as true o sound bites as o retail advertisements. To open mysel inattentively to a chaotic world" super icially taking in <one damned thing a ter another"< is to guarantee a hapha6ard behavior controlled by that world rather than by my own" wide7awake choices. The correlate o scattered <input"< then" is scattered <output.< Car" telephone" and television collaborate in this scattering by a ording a < reedom< o action that tends to enslave me. It becomes so easy to )o somewhere else 77 whether via screen" phone lines" or gasoline7powered engine 77 that the whirl o ceaseless goings substitutes or the hard work o inner attention to the ully dimensioned present. (ncouraged to veer o wherever I wish with scarcely so much as a moment-s orethought" I am never ully here 77 or there" or anywhere. All this is" as I have noted" a conventional criticism o modern culture. F.hich isn-t to say that we shouldn-t occasionally remind ourselves o it so long as nothing changes.G 9ut my current topic is the &et 77 this at a time when the networked computer is widely assumed to counter the cultural trends 3ust cited. 9y means o the &et" it is supposed" I can e0tend" concentrate" and enhance my mental powers. .here I am inattentive" ever7alert so tware running on my computer will be attentive or me. .here I am scattered" the computer will e0ecute precise" almost maniacally ocused behavior" deterred by no passing whims. .here my personal reach alls short" I can draw upon the nearly unlimited resources o a vast" electronic community. Em ty rece tacles It is not a happy task" in the ace o such optimism" to have to argue that computers and the &et have become the most highly per ected means yet or the scattering o the sel beyond recall. This is already hinted by the common e0perience o &et converts 77 those many newcomers 3ust now discovering the Internet" who ind themselves enthralled by the .almartlike aisles o cyberspace" stocked with a glorious sur eit o in ormation. It reminds one o the stories a ew years back about $ussian immigrants making their irst" overwrought e0cursions to American supermarkets. Some o them became rantic and unhinged by the incomprehensible abundance. 9ut in the online world" it seems" being overwrought never has to end. The relevant symptoms run ar beyond the mall syndrome. They are visible" or e0ample" in a remark by @inton Cer " one o the Internet-s designersB <It will become critical or everyone to be connected. Anyone who doesn-t will essentially be isolated rom the world community.< I1I 'ne particular orm o this alse urgency shows up in a scarcely 5uestioned conviction within online circles regarding scholarly 3ournals. As one &et contributor writesB #rint 3ournals are now valid as historical records rather than as the primary source o new in ormation. I a particular ield does not have e3ournals Jelectronic 3ournalsK" I believe that the researchers in that ield are alling behind. The immediacy o the research in these ields could be 5uestioned. %any ields are moving so 5uickly" that anyone not involved in electronic e0changes on their research would be out o it. I4I This is arrogant nonsense" however o ten repeated. In what disciplines will the contribution o the ne0t ,alileo or (instein or )arwin depend upon researchers having this month-s data rather than last year-s? That the <latest in ormation< should have become such a shrill concern is itsel evidence that e orts to grasp new and deeper meanin) 77 to see the world more profound$y and with new eyes 77 are giving way to a mindless accumulation o data and opinion. The rantic concern or recency illustrates" despite protestations to the contrary" the computer7aided triumph o the <empty7receptacle< view o the mind. Date7able knowledge is at the same time data7ble knowledge77 something we collect and store in our heads" like bits o in ormation in a database. The computer database" in act" has become the overwhelmingly dominant metaphor or the knowledgeable mind. It is also" I would suggest" an e0cellent metaphor or the scattered mind 77 the mind that everishly gathers glittering trinkets here and there" convinced that" somehow" a big enough pile o such notions will magically coalesce into one o those new paradigms said to be taking shape all around us.
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The truth o the matter is that the mind contains nothing o enduring value. Its assets 77 and the very substance o its achievement 77 reside in its own" rigorously disciplined" revelatory shape" its le0ibility" its strengthened vividness" its powers o attention and concentration" its sel 7awareness" its capacity or reverence and devotion. 9ut these 5ualities o the sel 7possessed knower" o the understanding consciousness" are e0actly what" over the past ive hundred years o scienti ic tradition" we have taught ourselves to ignore. As a result" the knowing sel has disappeared into a vague sort o insupportable sub3ectivity 77 a ghost in the machine 77 now inally ready or its ultimate e0orcism in avor o a denatured" mechani6ed re lection o intelligence. The scattered sel is a disappearing sel . Additional sym toms of scattering &eedless to say" the scattered and disappearing sel may have di iculty recogni6ing its own condition" or that would re5uire moments o 5uiet contemplation and sel 7re lection. Consistent with the empty7receptacle view o mind" the <in onaut< inds great honor throughout cyberspace or his computer7mediated ac5uisition o data" but little encouragement or the mind-s attention to its own activity. It is no wonder" then" that the age o the computer network should be greeted with the utterly alse and unsel 7aware conviction that" having inally halted the attenuation o consciousness toward a vacuous and isolated sub3ectivity" we are now entering a new era o computationally supported Superconsciousness. I have already mentioned a ew reasons or seeing things otherwise. The reality o its scattering e ects can" in act" be traced in virtually every aspect o the computer-s presence. Here are some e0amplesB Among those whose work gives them ull and unrestricted access to the Internet" the daily looding o mailbo0es o ten assumes legendary proportions. %any o us take pride in the speed with which we can dispose o messages 77 aster" perhaps" than we take in the three7inch story on the newspaper page. To contemplate the speaker behind the words 77 who is he" what is my connection to him" and what do I owe him in the orm o attention and concern? 77 is hardly realistic. #ersons ade rom view" and words become more important than their human source. Increasingly" our <business< is ound in the words alone.

Closely related to this is the almost universal habit o scanning induced by certain orms o &et access. !S(&(T newsgroups and high7 tra ic email discussion lists particularly encourage this habit. 2ew computer users seem to reali6e the damaging e ects o scanning" which orces a super icial" abstract" associational reading o dis3ointed te0ts Fi their contents are consciously noted at allG. 'ver the long term one understands ar more by thoroughly absorbing and then re lecting upon a very ew messages 77 or a ew paragraphs in long" sprawling messages 77 than by racing through endless kilobytes at top reading speed. I suspect that many people sense this" but nevertheless ind it nearly impossible to counter the insistent urge Fseeming to come rom withoutG toward a kind o hyper7browsing. Again closely related is the di iculty many &et users have in resisting the continual intrusion o incoming messages. The moment a message arrives on their system" a bell sounds or an icon lights up" and they interrupt whatever they are doing to see what has come in. The workday 77 already tending toward ragmentation in the modern o ice 77 is inally reduced to electronically 6apped smithereens. The potential advantages o hyperte0t are" in actual practice" a power ul invitation to scattering. It re5uires a tremendous inner discipline to sink onesel deeply into the thoughts represented by any given te0t" rather than to set o in grand" super icial pursuit o all the imagined delights behind the <doors< showing up as hyperte0t links on the screen. Clearly" a generation raised on Adventure and video games 77 where every door conceals a treasure or a monster worth pursuing in renetic style 77 has its own way o appreciating the hyperte0t inter ace. And society-s e0perience with television 77 where the <links< are buttons on a remote control device 77 doesn-t suggest positive things about our ability to use hyperte0t rather than be used by it. %any eatures o electronic word processing so tware tend to promote automatic" re le0ive activity in the composition o our own te0ts. I8I This is evident enough in the te0ts themselves. The message dashed o <without a second thought< 77 and o ten copied with e5ual thought ulness to a distribution list 77 is the message that determines the tone o the &et. .e ind ourselves immersed in a sea o words produced much too easily" without depth or weight" and saying nothing in particular. The programming task re5uires one to abstract rom a problem 3ust those elements that can be embedded in a mechanism. Apart rom a conscious" countervailing e ort" this means inattention to all the human dimensions o the problem that cannot be mechanically captured. 2or e0ample" group support so tware is typically designed to assist in the trans ormation o a set o initial <inputs< into a set o eventual <outputs.< That this entire e ort is merely a transient re lection o the rea$ purpose o any productive group 77 which is" or should be" or the individuals to work creatively together" and thereby to oster mutually the development o their human capacities 77 hardly igures in the design o most so tware engineering pro3ects. So the lives o both programmer and program user are illed with inherently unrelated tasks 77 unrelated because lacking connection to enduring purposes. I;I (ven the much7discussed <hacker syndrome< is related to the scattered sel . The obsessiveness o the socially cut o " out7o 7 control programmer can only arise as the complement o a lost center. .hile this obsessiveness represents a kind o concentration and attention" it is an attention that rules the sel rather than being at the sel -s disposal. That is" having ailed to gain an ability to direct himsel in conscious purpose ulness" the hacker becomes sub3ect to compulsions acting rom unhealthy places beneath consciousness.
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9eyond these brie suggestions" the television may have a ew things to tell us about the potentials o the computer. A rison window I the television has proven an ideal instrument or scattering and weakening my powers o attention and my ability to be ully present" the networked computer promises to challenge me more radically still. .here television leads me through an endless kaleidoscope o passive e0periences without any possibility o my being <all there< in any o them FI cannot react in any normal way to the accident shown on the screen" so I learn to blunt my powers o presence and responseG" the computer invites me to carry out even the active business o my working and social li e without being all there. I may revel in the act that all o cyberspace" o ering all its mani old transactions" is available through this small window on my desk. It is well to remember" however" that until recently most windows mediating the world to us in such a restrictive ashion had steel bars in them. &ot many welcomed the prison. Some prisoners" it-s true" have reported sublime e0periences when catching a rare moment-s glimpse o a bird through a narrow slit open to the sky. 9ut it seems enough today i the window is gla6ed over with phosphors" so that we can divert ourselves unremittingly with the wonders o 17) graphics" imagining that we are ree to go wherever we wish. I=I &o doubt we can structure our lives and society so as to conduct all important business upon the sur ace o this small window. In outward terms" @inton Cer -s claim may then become trueB anyone disconnected rom the &et will be isolated rom world community. 9ut even then" we must hope there will remain someone or whom the world hidden behind the glossed7over window is not altogether orgotten. Someone or whom the bird7shaped collection o illuminated pi0els invokes the aint memory o a living creature with seeing eyes and beating heart 77 and or whom the di erence between image and reality has not yet aded into mistiness. Someone or whom a routine inancial transaction can still be an e0pression o trust. Someone or whom strong eeling has not inally been reduced to the vacuity o an email lame. 'ne reason the computer-s invitation to scattering 77 like television-s 77 is so strong" is that everything appearing on the sur ace o this small window remains an abstract representation o the unseen world beyond the window. .hen the world is presented to us at such a great remove" we re5uire a heroic e ort o imaginative reconstruction to avoid slipping by degrees into a habit o treating the representations on the window sur ace in the hal 7conscious" re le0ive manner typical o the video game player. There is good reason or thinking that television has made this e ort o imaginative reconstruction more di icult. The computer" by letting us enter a gamelike world even while conducting our business" may be making the e ort nearly impossible. !alse com arisons %any people assume that computer technology is leading us out o the television wasteland" <because now everything is interactive.< 9ut this overlooks almost the entire signi icance o interactivity" which enables us to put the video screen to e0tensive new uses. .e couldn-t do our banking or coordinate our engineering pro3ects by televisionH with the computer" we can. The important thing about interactivity is not that it redeems old orms o entertainment Fit doesn-tG" but rather what it does to the new activities now being adapted to the video screen. %aking sitcoms interactive will not lead to cultural trans ormation" but there-s every reason to e0pect" or e0ample" that moving local" ace7to7 ace politics online will tend to change the character o those politics in the direction of what we-ve already seen happen to televised politics. Interactivity" in other words" does not salvage the pree0isting wasteland" but it may well reduce huge tracts o once7thriving ad3acent territory to semiaridity. The argument based on interactivity would have us say" in e ect" <Cook how much greener than the desert this new" semiarid land isD< %eanwhile" by means o the computer" concrete human activity itsel is invited toward passivity" automatism" and lowered consciousness. This is a momentous development. The sleight o hand in the argument about interactivity is repeated on many ronts. To cite one other e0ampleB the in ormality o much computer7mediated communication is o ten seen as a recovery o the direct" the personal" the participatory" the emotionally e0pressive. %any observers" contrasting this <new orality< with ormal or <literate< communication" see the computer carrying us back to earlier" more vivid and personali6ed orms o human e0change. 9ut the relevant comparison is not between oral and literate. It is between the genuinely oral communication that once took place ace7 to7 ace" and the <secondary orality< now electronically replacing that communication. Here we see the computer-s in luence running e0actly counter to the usual thesisB in ormal communication is tending toward the abstract" disengaged" and remote" with eeling conveyed indirectly through the arti ice o written e0pression" and participation unavoidably constrained by the narrower channel. I should add that the ease with which this sleight o hand succeeds77 and anyone willing to spend time perusing a selection o &et discussion groups can 5uickly veri y the success 77 is itsel testimony to an idealism loosed rom reality. 6#ea!s cannot 2e engineere# The ideals sought by the scattered mind are empty ideals" abstract ideals" ideals without grip 77 hovering uselessly in the air above earth rather than enno+$in) earth. %uch o the appeal o cyberspace appears to be its clean" demateriali6ed" conceptual nature" born o the programmer-s and engineer-s schemati6ing" ungrounded and there ore uncontaminated. That many &et enthusiasts see this as a
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strength 77 as an opportunity to reali6e our highest ideals 77 testi ies to the absence o the concrete human being rom the idealist-s aseptic calculations. He has orgotten that the improvement o the human being is a messy" li elong undertaking" inseparable rom su ering. .hat" then? Can human ideals survive the Internet? Surely they can" but the main reason or thinking they are not in fact surviving lies in the much too easy" much too widespread conviction that they will naturally take root in the ethereali6ed soil o cyberspace. The &et-s idealistic For" e5ually" its atalisticG depiction evidences a loss o awareness about where ideals may ind For ail o G their ul illment. The ul illed ideal is never anything other than an e0tended human capacity 77 or generosity" or sympathetic understanding" or orgiving" or the imaginative pro3ection o a better uture .... 'ur having orgotten this act suggests that the issue today is whether we can come to ourselves in the presence o our intelligent arti acts" and there ore whether there is any uture or human ideals. The computer" like so many tools" is a speciali6ed and one7sided e0pression o what we have become" and there ore re5uires an e ort o sel 7mastery. It re5uires the restoration o a disrupted internal balance. .e bene it rom this" or in mastering new tools we strengthen our own capacities. In this sense" every tool parado0ically o ers us one gi t above all othersB it gives us something to work against. .e turn it to our own use 77 overcoming it in the process 77 not primarily in order to gain some thin) as a result" but in order to have accomplished the overcoming. It is always ourselves we work on" whether we reali6e it or not. There is no other work to be done in the world. And today the need ul work is to distinguish ourselves rom our machines. It is to rediscover" or e0ample" that all knowledge is knowledge o man" and that nothing worth calling an ideal can be ound in the engineered world" but only in ourselves. All this has a simple and inescapable implication. I the computer-s gi t is a landmark one in human history 77 and I believe it is 77 it can only be so because it poses a landmark danger. .e can" a ter all" ail in the re5uired sel 7mastery. I we are asked to come to ourselves over against our machines" we remain ree to shun this e0tremely di icult work. So ar" there has scarcely been an acknowledgment that the challenge even e0ists" let alone engagement with it. A lace for ho e" and a lace for doubt I am not a atalist" but my pessimism about our immediate prospects in the <age o in ormation< could scarcely be greater. At the same time" some will ind my underlying hope" rooted in the reality o human reedom" di icult to tolerate. ,iven these contrary tendencies o my thought" it may help to di erentiate the two conte0ts in which my pessimism and hope come to e0pressionB .hen I am speaking to the individual as he sits at his computer" I cannot point and say either <goodD< or <badD< .e-re not in that universe o discourse. All I can say is" <(nliven the wordD .ork at enlivening the wordD I you cannot do so" you will lose yoursel D Cike it or not" the computer is with us to stay. So ar as you are re5uired to use it" you must redeem it or you will become like it.< .here the individual-s sovereign reedom rules" I speak o choices" and cannot prescribe. There is hope. The mere e0change o written words between two human beings can lead 77 or persons with e0traordinarily developed sensitivities 77 to a more intimate knowledge o each other and a more substantial bearing o each other-s burdens than most o us will ever achieve" say" in a li etime o marriage. There have been some truly remarkable correspondences over the course o history. In some ways" the computer may be helping to call us toward e0actly such deepened perceptions o each other. .herever there is a word" there is a little ro6en piece o the interior o a human being. It can" through pain ully di icult e ort" be thawed and enlivened. It can bring the other person alive or us. %oreover" the computer-s inert manipulation o the word drives us to seek" by contrast" how we can speak out o our ull humanity.

I " on the other hand" I am addressing policy issues or social prospects" then current responses to the imperative 3ust described become the basis or my assessment. Here the acts are whatever they are" and there is no necessary balance between hope and despair. .e can" at a particular point in history" be 5uite as evidently headed toward disaster as once we were headed" say" toward .orld .ar II. 'ur task is to read the evidences and draw whatever conclusions we must. I>I

%y own conclusion" given voice in the ollowing chapters" is starkB i we continue assimilating our lives to computers according to the tendencies already broadly active in society 77 and those tendencies show every sign o retaining their grip upon us 77 then we will inally lose ourselves. It is in this second" po$icy conte0t 77 where" or e0ample" we choose to in lict the computer upon millions o schoolchildren who have not asked or this reductive assault upon their higher capacities" and where we rush to assimilate every aspect o society to the computer-s programmed necessities 77 that a spirit o 3udgment reigns most uncompromisingly in me. I say this con essionally" or I would rather it were not so. I would pre er to state the computer-s challenge rom a wholly positive inner stance. 2ear and 3udgment in an author do not encourage the reader-s awakening to himsel H yet a book is 3usti ied only inso ar as it serves this awakening.

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Some sort o < ull disclosure statement< is there ore advisable. I conclude with two such statementsB the irst relates to the two preceding conte0ts" and the second to my own 3ourney in writing this book. We must see what is at risk As I was inishing work on The Future Does Not Compute" a riendly critic re erred to my <3eremiad< against computers and wondered whether a more balanced approach might increase my e ectiveness. It was then that I irst made the distinction between personal responsibility and social policy. And I went on to reply as ollowsB <*ou claim that I grant no possibility or Mreal and important kinds o online community.- That-s not true. I accept both the reality and the importance. <The online community is rea$ because every medium that passes a Mword- 77 by which I mean an e0pressive gesture" an act with an inside 77 will bear some kind o human community. As I remark in chapter ;" community will even take hold o the asphalt highway and the television talk show. The online community is also important because" given its inevitably deepening hold on society" everything rides on our learning to master it 77 to make it as ully human a community as possible. <Similarly" some readers seem convinced that" because in the policy conte0t" I see little positive hope or certain computer uses" I must be telling them" Mit-s wrong or you to use these things"- or at least Mit-s impossible to do anything worthwhile or genuine or personally authentic with these things.- As a po$icy matter" this may be close to the current truthB those institutions being adapted to the computer will almost certainly continue to be drained o their remaining human dimensions. That-s the way we are employing the computer. It has a lot to do with our abstracting and computational bent" under development now or several centuries. The computer re5uires a right ully intense e ort on our part i we-re to overcome its downward pull. <9ut as a way o addressing the individual acing his computer" this reading is almost the opposite o the truth. &ot only can we do worthwhile things with computers" not only are worthwhile things being done every day" we must learn how to bring our computeri6ed interactions ully alive" so that they represent more than 3ust the hopeless loss o something. This is true regarding a$$ the terms o human e0change" in whatever medium. <So another way I could state the relation between the two conte0ts is thisB so ar as I must deal with the computer 77 because it is ever less escapable in modern society 77 or so ar as I eel it my personal necessity to take up the challenge o the computer" to that degree I con ront the urgent need to discover how to make the computer an instrument o human ends. 9ut this is not the same as choosing to thrust the computer ever more deeply into a society that already looks like ailing the challenge badly. <This" then" brings me to the central matter. I said above that I haven-t really learned yet how to speak about the computer-s promise. I am hoping you will grant at least the possibility that there are some good reasons or this 77 perhaps" in the irst place" the Msimplereason that computers present a vast and comple0 challenge that ew o us are yet well positioned to take on. Considering that the real terms o the challenge still go almost completely unacknowledged in social debate" I think this e0planation is reasonable. <It is" moreover" related to a second point. Can anyone seriously accept the grave personal responsibility to en$iven the word without irst having an inkling o what is at risk 77 that is" without irst recogni6ing the perilous place to which we have come as homo computandus? I do not believe it is possible. .e are not going to sweat the necessary blood over something that hasn-t become desperately" threateningly important to us. <9ear in mind where we are" as I have pictured it in #A$T TH$((" MThe (lectronic .ord.- In the line that runs rom orality to literacy to the printed book to the computer" we ind the computer bringing to near completion the severing o the word rom its live source in the individual. &ot only that" but the programmed computer now sets the words in motion" mimicking Fand" by common understanding" duplicating or replacingG the speaking human being in many and e0panding circumstances. <*ou and I will not ade5uately embark upon our individual labors without seeing the scale o the threat" and we cannot see the scale o the threat without ... seeing it. .hat I have basically attempted to do in this book is to sketch the threat. I have also tried to make clear that the only reasonable place the sketch can lead is to a kind o inner awakening whose content I-m in no position to prescribe or others. <2or the general undertaking o the book" I can only believe that what you call my 3eremiad is a true and Mbalanced- representation. #erhaps it is not the most e ective approach. I am trying to discover others. 9ut the di iculty o starting with the positive potential o the computer is" I am convinced" a Herculean one. <#ersonally" I would indict the book on two countsB it does not lead over into a strongly positive vision Fbecause the vision is as yet beyond my kenGH and it does not ade5uately depict the desperation o our current circumstances. <It-s not inconceivable to me that the computer in our society will prove a kind o Mnecessary disaster"- rather as one might think o .orld .ar II as having been a necessary prere5uisite or some more distant good. At the point where .orld .ar II loomed large" a wise person might have accepted the prospects and given himsel over to planting seeds or the uture amidst the enveloping chaos. 9ut no wise person will speak casually o the Mgood- in such things as wars 77 even though good does somehow emerge rom the rubble. I mysel have 3ust recently been chastised 77 with some 3ustice" I ear 77 or speaking too lightly o the good in illness.
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<9ut isn-t it even less wise to speak lightly o the good in something that promises to bring su ering on the level o a pestilence or a war" and yet is widely embraced as i it were a savior?< I a 5uestion o balance can be asked o the book" it can also be asked o the author.... This 2oo% is a sy&pto& This book is not ull o solutions. In act" it is itsel a symptom. .hen I write about the dangers o computeri6ed technology" I ind that I have sketched my own one7sidedness" much as the police artist sketches a criminal rom a victim-s description. An editor wrote alongside one o my more computer7phobic outbursts" <How can you say this when it-s your own li e you-re describing?< It is my own li eH that-s why I can say it. I work on a concrete basement loor at home" isolated in ront o a large screen and surrounded by a high7powered computer" modem" laser printer" telephone" and a0 machine. I-m an editor or a publisher o computer books. 2or the past thirteen years my 3ob has included programming responsibilities in addition to technical writing. In order to produce this book" I have sat or much7too7long days 77 and weekends 77 in ront o my terminal" eyes glassy" spinal nerves in my neck going bad" general health and itness deteriorating" my amily neglected" the e5uipment around me dictating the terms o my e0istence. I do not now wish I had done di erently. 9ut I will never again live with technology in 5uite the same way. To be imbalanced is one thingH to ail to change and grow is another. I have changed. 'r" at least" I have started to change. I nothing else" this book has orced it. It has re5uired me to look technology in the eye" and begin deciding what to do about my own relation to it. 'ne thing was done even as I wroteB I moved with my amily to a strongly rooted rural community 77 a sort o unintentional intentional community 77 where the attempt to ind a human7centered stance toward technology is much less a matter o theori6ing than a deeply committed way o li e. There is irony in this" howeverB my telecommuting is what made the move possible. I have also begun to manage my e0posure to technology. 9ut this does little good as a purely negative process. I have recogni6ed" as $obert Sardello puts it" that I must discover the sou$ o technology" and work toward its redemption. I?I Among other things" this re5uires that I ind the counterbalance within my own li e to the relentless pressures 77 issuing rom within as well as rom without 77 to compute the terms o my humanity. The computer" a ter all" symboli6es a society in which the head has been severed rom heart and will. I have learned the hard way that when my head runs on by itsel 77 automatically" according to its precious" insulated logic 77 it is controlled by subterranean impulses o heart and will that I can never be ully aware o . Art and nature" I have begun to glimpse" can play a healing role here 77 hardly a revelation to those less one7sided than I. So" too" can such simple acts as scheduling my time harmoniously and paying a more concerned attention to my immediate environment. There is also the need or a disciplined e0ercise o perception and thinking 77 certainly as important as e0ercising the physical organism. And then" or me 77 sel 7contradictory as the e ort turned out to be 77 there was the writing o this book. These pages" you might say" record the conversation I had with mysel as I sought a way out. The sel 7 contradiction is part o the story. I I had wanted a book that was not a symptom" I would have had to wait until I possessed all the answers. There would never have been a book. &o one will ind a solution to the problems o technology 77 or to any other human challenge 77 e0cept by irst coming to terms with himsel and moving personally toward wholeness. 9ut to capture something o the move toward wholeness is to capture an un inished 77 and there ore still symptomatic 77 enterprise. *ou may read the symptoms as you wish. I you think that I have <intellectuali6ed< too much" I will not 5uarrel with you. I may even reply under my breath" <*es" that-s part o what I mean 77 that-s the one7sidedness o our age" rom which only now do I nurse any timid hopes o eventual escape.< I you ind my view o technology overly negative" I can only acknowledge that I have not yet been able to recogni6e what a redeemed technology might look like. I am absolutely convinced that redemption 77 sometime" somewhere 77 is possible. 9ut I also know that a society can choose to make a pact with the devil. (ven such a pact may perhaps be redeemedH but I do not know the way. I have striven in this book to understand" so ar as I am able" the encounter between man and computer. I understanding is not itsel a solution" it is at least an essential prere5uisite or any solution. Anyone who demands from others something more than understanding 77 or e0ample" an <answer< or a <program< 77 is himsel driven by the computational paradigm. .hat he really wants is mechanically e ective <in ormation< and an escape rom personal responsibility. It is" in act" the great blindness imposed by the technological spirit to believe that we can sa ely ignore ourselves 77 as i all we needed were a proper" technical plan o action. $eally" there never can be solutions in human a airs. There are only passages. 9y contrast" the computational paradigm is the inal crystalli6ation 77 in <hard logic< 77 o our e orts over the past ew hundred years to recast the issues o human destiny as 5uestions o techni5ue. 9ut your destiny and mine are not technical problems to be solvedH they are meanings to be entered into" and possibilities or personal growth.

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This book is written or those who seek escape rom everything anti7 human" and who would reclaim their own destinies. It-s 3ust that I cannot tell you e0actly what the escape is" and I certainly cannot point you to your destiny. I can only try to contribute" within this broader" human conte0t" to an understanding o the problems. #erhaps" at least" the display o my own symptoms will aid the e ort to understand. I I remain one7sided" it is precisely with the one7 sidedness o the computer7in7the7head. I still struggle to apprehend 77 or be apprehended by 77 those so t7breathed" inner gestures that" like the patient caress o wind and water" can dismantle the ro6en" logical per ection o the most adamantine crystal. -eferences 1. $heingold" 1??1B ;=. +. &et announcement posted by cpsr7announceNsunnyside.com on )ecember ;" 1??4. 1. <!S data highway gathers speed"< The Boston ,$o+e" +; )ecember 1??+. 4. 2rom a contribution to the <ipct7l< list Fipct7lNguvm.cc .georgetown.eduG" 1; &ovember 1??1. 8. See especially chapters 18" <)ancing with %y Computer"< and 1;" <The Tyranny o the )etached .ord.< ;. See chapter 1A" <Thoughts on a ,roup Support System.< =. 2or discussion o common issues presented by computers and television" see chapter 14" <Children o the %achine"< and chapter +8" <.hat This 9ook .as About.< >. 2or an overview o some o the social orces directing society-s adaptation to the computer" see Iacono" Su6anne and Eling" $ob" <Computeri6ation %ovements and Tales o Technological !topianism< in Eling" 1??8. &umerous other papers in the same volume provide use ul background. ?. Sardello" 1??+. #he $achine in the %host The intelligence o computers is delivered upon tiny chips made o silicon 77 3ust about the most homely and earthy material known to man. Silicon amounts pretty much to sand. Apply a ew volts o electricity to some duly prepared slivers o silicon" and 77 i you are like most people 77 there will suddenly take shape be ore your eyes a )3inn con3uring visions o a surreal uture. It is a uture with robots who surpass their masters in de0terity and witH intelligent agents who roam the &et on our behal " seeking the in ormational eli0ir that will make us wholeH new communities inhabiting the clean" in inite reaches o cyberspace" reed rom war and con lictH and lending libraries o <virtually real< e0periences that seem more sensational than the real thing 77 all awaiting only the proper wave o industry-s well7proven technological wand. As you probably reali6e" not all o this is idle or antastic speculation 77 even i it is the rather standard gush about our computeri6ed uture. Something $i'e this is indeed coming 77 in act" has already arrived. And ew observers can see any clear limits to what computers might eventually accomplish. It is this stunning" wide7open potential that leads some people to wonder what the )3inn will ask o us in return or the gi t. A ter all" any potential so dramatic" so diverse" so universa$" can be taken in many directions. That is its very nature. .ho will choose the direction 77 we" or the )3inn? Too!s get n#er o r s%in As ar back as human traces go" man has used tools. 9ut tools are slippery things 77 e0ceedingly hard to de ine. (verything rom a hand7held stone to language has been seen as a tool. Tools are" by most de initions" e0tensions o ourselves" and are both the result o and the means or our acting in the world. (ven our own limbs may be used as tools. In act" we can readily view our limbs as <archetypes"< or primary e0amples" o what it means to be a tool. 9ut haven-t I lost my way i I can-t tell the di erence between a tool and mysel " or even between a tool and my own" word7borne thoughts? .ell" maybe not. At least" there-s a truth here worth going a terB .hen we talk about tools" we are" one way or another" talking about ourselves. There-s a depth o meaning in the old saying" <To someone who has only a hammer" everything begins to look like a nail.< .e not only shape things with our toolsH we are shaped by them 77 our behavior adapts. This has been recogni6ed in many di erent arenas. *ou may" or e0ample" have heard the e0pression" <the medium is the message< 77 that is" the tools we use to communicate a message a ect what we say. 'ne conse5uence is that you will probably ind yoursel putting on a di erent <personality< when you
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compose an electronic mail message" rom when you write a note on stationery. Somehow 77 rather uncannily 77 tools always seem to get <under our skin.< #he unconscious as steam engine 'ne other thing is undeniable about toolsB over the course o history they have become increasingly comple0. This is a ascinating study in itsel " or there seem to be certain thresholds o comple0ity 77 or" perhaps" thresholds in our own minds 77 beyond which the character o the tool is mightily trans ormed. There were" o course" various mechanical devices ar back in history 77 or e0ample" looms and hoes and catapults. 9ut during the Scienti ic and Industrial $evolutions" the cleverness embodied in mechanisms changed with e0treme rapidity" entailing a kind o systematic" rationali6ed intricacy not seen be ore. A modern o set printing press or harvesting combine is as ar removed rom the loom o an ancient ,reek household as 77 well" as we eel ourselves to be rom ancient ,reece. Since a radical trans ormation o tools implies a parallel trans ormation o the tool user" we are not surprised to learn that the age o great mechanical invention was also the age during which our ancestors o a ew hundred years ago began to < eel< as i they inhabited a clockwork universe. Here-s how 'wen 9ar ield describes the matterB I recall very well" when I was writing my early book" History in -n)$ish *ords" I1I being astonished at the ubi5uitous appearance o the c$oc' as a metaphor shortly a ter it had been invented. It turned up everywhere where anybody was trying to describe the way things work in nature .... Coming a little nearer to our own time Jthe student o wordsK inds the psychology o the unconscious" in which the irst hal o the twentieth century elt so much at home. Strange how s5uarely it seems to be based on an image o <repression"< which is much the same as compressionD .as it a ter all 3ust the steam7engine in disguise? I+I 9ar ield was writing be ore the computer age. I he were penning those words today" he would have to cite" not 3ust another <contraption"< but something strangely transcending all the products o the machine era. 2or now we seem to have crossed another threshold 77 one carrying us ar beyond the most impressive achievements o the Industrial Age. Computers o er us an entirely new order o comple0ity" intelligence" le0ibility. They achieve what we could scarcely imagine an old7style mechanism achieving. These modest" unimposing devices on our desks demonstrate a remarkable capacity to emu$ate 77 that is" to become any tool. &eed a calculator? Typesetter? %ailbo0? #encil and paper? 2ile cabinet? Cibrary? Tape recorder? There they are" sitting in ront o you" awaiting your command. A computer can even become" in its own way" a tornado or ocean wave" modeling these things in such a compelling manner that some theorists now believe the essence o the tornado or wave really is in the computer. 9ut this new threshold is even more momentous than I have so ar suggested. The truth that we cannot talk about tools without talking about ourselves" now becomes stunningly literal. &ot only do our tools reveal things about us" they promise to +ecome usD That" at least" is what many people think is happening through research in arti icial intelligence. 'ther people worry that" because tools inevitably work their way under our skin" we are in the process o becoming <mere computers.< )oes our enthusiasm or computerlike models o the mind re lect our irm grasp o the computer" or rather the computer-s irm grasp o us? "e &eet o rse!ves in o r co&p ters How do we begin assessing the computer as a human tool? The claims and counter7claims easily become tiresome. 2or every bene it o the computer you cite" I can point to a corresponding threatH and or every alarm I sound" you can herald a new opportunity. This slipperiness" in act 77 as I have already suggested 77 must be our starting point. #art o the essence o a computer is its le0ibility" its emulative ability" its diverse potentials. It is a universa$ machine. ,iven a technology o almost pure" open7ended potential" the machinery itsel is" rom a certain point o view" scarcely worth discussing. It is a template" a blank screen. (verything hinges upon what we bring to the technology" and which o its potentials we choose to reali6e. The one sure thing about the computer-s uture is that we will behold our own re lections in it. (ven the <computer7human inter ace< people 77 who have contributed so much to our understanding o machine design 77 have ailed to probe ade5uately the implications o the act that we-re really dealing with a human7human inter ace. Those were so tware engineers who designed that obstructive program you struggled with last week. Computer scientists conceived the languages that constrained the programmers. And certain academicians irst recogni6ed" or thought they recogni6ed" the 5uintessence o their own mentality in a transistori6ed logic gate. Could they have done so i they had not already begun to e0perience themselves as logic machines? Could I" or that matter" allow the hammer in my hands to run riot i there were no answering spirit o aggression within me? This is why I ind naive rhapsodi6ing about computers so disconcerting. It e0presses the very sort o blithe unawareness that converts the technology into a pro ound threat. %achines become a threat when they embody our limitations without our being ully aware o those limitations. All reason shouts at us to approach every aspect o the computer with the greatest caution and reserve. 9ut what incentive has our culture provided or the e0ercise o such caution and reserve? It-s more in our nature to let technology lead where it will" and to celebrate the leading as progress. ' course" every invention" rom television to nuclear power" tends to incarnate the will Fconscious or unconsciousG o its employer. And i that will is less than ully conscious" the invention wields us more than we wield it. Can anyone really doubt that we have become the tools o television ar more than the reverse? 9ut the computer ups the ante in a game already e0tremely perilous. It
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relentlessly" single7mindedly" apes us even in 77 or perhaps especially in 77 those habits we are not yet aware o " or it is endowed in some sense with a mind o its own. Have we been learning to view the human being as a cipher in a political calculation? The computer will re ine those calculations beyond our hopes. Are we content to employ our educational system as a tool or shoveling <in ormation< into child7receptacles? The computer o ers endless databases rom which to do the shoveling 77 and entertainment to <help the pill go down.< F2irst" parents turned their children over to a television screenH now we can give teachers the same right.G Have our businesses been converting themselves into computational machines geared to a purely 5uantitative bottom line" disconnected rom considerations o human value? Computers not only can assist such businesses" they can +ecome such businessesH all they need is an appropriate program. FComputers on .all Street" trading in inancial instruments" are already pro itable businesses pursuing <clean"< mathematical values.G Has ours become an age o meaninglessness? The computer asks us to betray what meanings we have le t or dessicated in ormation. The comple0" 5ualitative" metaphorical nature o meaning only gets in the way o the easy" computational manipulation o numerically cast in ormation.

All o which is to say that we have been progressively distilling into the computer certain pronounced tendencies o our own minds. These tendencies are certainly related to that entire several7hundred7year history by which our culture has gained both its technological triumphs and its horrors. 9ut is the computer really 3ust a blank screen re lecting our own natures? )oesn-t it invite 77 even encourage 77 a one7sided display o human traits? It seems undeniable that what the computer asks rom us is above all else <what computes.< It asks us to abstract rom human e0perience a 5uantity" a logic" that it can cope with. And yet" we must acknowledge that during the past several centuries we have shown" 5uite independently o the computer" a strong passion or reducing all o human e0perience" all knowledge" to abstraction. The computer is a per ected result o this urge. Can we blame the computer or this? The .i!! to.ar# artifice 'n the one handB the machine as an e0pression o the human being. 'n the other handB the machine as an independent orce that acts or reacts upon us. .hich is it? I am convinced there is no hope or understanding the role o technology in today-s world without our irst learning to hold both sides o the truth in our minds" le0ibly and simultaneously. The relationship between human being and machine has become something like a comple0 symbiosis. .e who devise <thinking machines< cannot escape our own most intimate responsibility or the planet-s rapidly crystalli6ing" electromechanical nimbus" nor can we escape the prospect o its increasing 77 and potentially threatening 77 independence o mind and sel 7will. In sumB i machines do not simply control society" neither can we claim straight orward control o their e ects. .e and our mechanical o spring are bound together in an increasingly tight weave. To substantially modi y the larger pattern 77 rather than simply be carried along by it 77 re5uires pro ound analysis o things not immediately evident" and a di icult e ort to change things not easily changed. I it is only through sel 7awareness and inner ad3ustment that I can restrict the hammer in my hands to its proper role" I must multiply the e ort a million old when dealing with a vastly more comple0 technology 77 one e0pressing in a much more insistent manner its own urgencies. 9ut that is not 5uite all. .e are not 77 yet" at least 77 bound to our machines by a per ectly rigid symmetry o mutual in luence. The will ulness we encounter in technology" even where it has long since detached itsel rom us" nevertheless originates in the human being 77 a act some o the severer critics o technology overlook. I1I So long as we can document the nonneutrality o technology 77 as these critics so e ectively have77 then we do not live in absolute thrall to it. 2or understanding is the basis o our reedom. 2reedom is admittedly a risky business. .e can choose to ignore the sound warnings o these criticsH we can continue giving ull rein to the hal 7conscious impulses we have embedded in our machines even while abdicating the kind o responsibility the critics plead or. .e can" that is" inally descend to e5uality with our machines. This would be a ear ul symmetry indeed" precluding the sort o understanding rom which reedom arises and sealing o the escape rom pure" mechanical determination. Throughout the ollowing pages my arguments will retain a double edge. At one moment I will emphasi6e the determining in luence we have already given to our machinesH the ne0t moment I will urge the burden o reedom. There is no essential contradiction here. A recognition o what has been determining us is the only basis or a responsible reedom. &or does either side o this double truth re5uire me to call or a mindless re3ection o technology. I will" in act" have little to say about technology as such in this book. .hat I really ear is the hidden and increasingly power ul machine within us" o which the machines we create are an e0pression. 'nly by irst coming to terms with our own <will toward arti ice< can we gain the reedom to use wisely the arti ices o our creation. -eferences

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1. 9ar ield" 1?>;. 2irst published in 1?+;. +. <The Harp and the Camera"< a lecture subse5uently published in 9ar ield" 1?==bB =174. 1. See chapter 8" <'n 9eing $esponsible or (arth.< #he !uture &oes 'ot Com ute Computers are tools o the past. They are per ectly designed to aid our understanding precisely inso ar as it is a past7understanding. 2or e0ample" i we want to know when lunar eclipses will occur in the year +A81" there-s no better tool or iguring it out than a computer. <9ut wait a minute. +A81 isn-t in the past. That-s a prediction o the uture.< .ell" yes" in a trivial sense. %ore reasonably" you might say it-s the past simply pro3ected into the uture. And the pro3ection involves nothing newH it-s nothin) +ut the past. (verything in the <prediction< was already ully implicit in the celestial con iguration o " say" 1>8=. All we-re saying is" <Here-s what the past looks like when pro3ected onto the year +A81.< .hat happens when we rea$$y turn our computers toward the uture 77 or try to? All too o ten" disaster. )isaster" or e0ample" in the orm o decision support systems wrongly applied. Human decisions clearly are For ought to beG matters o the uture. .e make decisions in order to choose a uture di erent rom the one now approaching us. &o analysis o what is" and no set o previously calculated 5uestions or heuristics" can remove the burden o choice. .hen I choose a uture" shall I re3ect 1O o the analysis 77 which is to say" 1O o the past 77 or ??O? .hat is to guide me 77 more analysis o the past? Ho. sha!! 6 choose &y .ifeA Ask yoursel about the critical decisions in your li e. How did you choose your present vocation? There are" o course" very sober ways or doing this. 9egin by taking a ew psychological tests to inventory your skills and aptitudes" personality type" likes and dislikes" character" stability" inancial re5uirements" geographic pre erences" physical characteristics Fstrength" endurance" handicapsG" and so on. Then align this inventory with a similar analysis o all the possible vocations Fbasic skills re5uired" pro iles o the most success ul people in each vocation ... G. 2inally" identi y the closest it and FprestoDG there-s your uture 77 presumably a well7ad3usted" pro itable" and happy one. 9ut" no" something-s not right here. Have you" or has anyone you know" ever made an important decision by weighing all related actors" adding them up" and then obeying the sum? This is not really your uture we-re talking aboutH it-s your past. The real 5uestion is" what do you choose to become 77 despite what you are now? .hat uture not already embodied in the past will you embrace? ' the great igures o history" where would they be i they had merely hewed to a reasonable uture? :oan o Arc. The irst black in a white %ississippi college. The irst woman doctor. The soldier who dives on a hand grenade to protect his comrades 77 what sort o a uture is that? *et we honor him. The psychologist" Al red Adler" went so ar as to make a rule o the act that outstanding people typically work a)ainst their pro iles and their past. I1I He tells us o various painters who had eye problems" and claims that =AO o art students were < ound to su er rom some optical anomalies.< %usicians" he notes" have o ten su ered rom ear a lictions 77 leading to dea ness in the case o 9eethoven and $obert 2ran6. Clara Schumann reported hearing and speech di iculties in childhood. And then there-s )emosthenes" the stutterer" who became the greatest orator o ,reece. .hat sort o decision support system might have been use ul 77 or destructive 77 to these people? 'r take marriage. Shall I choose a wi e reasonably" because all the indicators point to our being well7ad3usted and happy" or shall I plunge into a uture I cannot ully see" but that I am strangely" mysteriously" drawn to" dimly recogni6ing something o mysel Fbut not yet mysel G in my partner? Is there really a choice to be made between the per ectly compatible marriage o the inventory7takers and the reality cited by Adol ,ueggenbuhl7Craig? %arriage" he says" is a special path or discovering the soul .... 'ne o the essential eatures o this soteriological pathway is the absence o avenues or escape. :ust as the saintly hermits cannot evade themselves" so the married persons cannot avoid their partners. In this partially upli ting" partially tormenting evasionlessness lies the speci ic character o this path. I+I Surely we may as well accept this rom the start Fand you can see such acceptance in every good marriageG" or that is the way it will turn out in any case. Can I gain anything truly worthwhile in li e without su ering Fand discoveringG the une0pected? 9ut how shall I program into my computer the une0pected" or the e5uation o su ering and reward? (very 5uestion about the uture 77 every human 5uestion 77 is like this. .e strike out into the unknown" with a hope and a vision perhaps" but without an ade5uate <basis< or our decisions. A ter all" a perfect$y ade5uate basis would mean the decision was trivial" because divorced rom 5uestions o human destiny. !n ortunately" however" broad areas o our lives have allen under the spell o the
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computational approach" where we imagine the computer 77 the past 77 to hold the secret o a uture that is" there ore" no longer a uture. Co&p ting to .or% Cook" or e0ample" at business. In many conte0ts we take it or granted that our businesses should be managed as matters o the past. Analy6e the market precisely enough" design the product to it the analysis" and the bottom line is guaranteed 77 because it is already implicit in the past. At least" that is the ideal o <per ect analysis and planning< toward which we strive" and we measure our success against it. .hat has allen out o this picture? :ust the entire meaning o wor'" 3ust the whole human reason why people band together and direct their creative energies toward productive ends. -nds 77 things worth pursuing. ,oods that are good" services that serve. The corporation has divorced itsel rom 5uestions like <.hat task do I wish to take up in the world?< and <.hat is the uture we wish to create?< .e orm our companies only to learn that they no longer embody our ends" but somehow have a neat" predictable logic o their own. .e choose a uture only to ind it taken out o our hands" e0changed or a permutation o the past. I1I The computer" one might almost say" was invented as an inevitable re inement o the corporation. %uch o the early work in arti icial intelligence came out o schools o management" and there was a great deal o e0citement 77 this was back in the 1?;As 77 about how computers would soon take over all the business manager-s hard decisions. And make a better 3ob o it. Computers didn-t bring anything essentially newH they were 3ust going to be better machines than we had yet managed to be. .eighing the past is critically important" in business as elsewhere. It helps us to see the current playing ield" identi y constraints" compare options against an established ramework. 2or this" computers are immensely valuable. 9ut they do us no good i " in the process" we lose the uture 77 i our thinking becomes so shaped to a knowledge o the past that our courage ails us when it comes time to break the machine and declare or the un3usti iable. "hen @ #ges are co&p ters There is a strong case to be made 77 although I have not made it here 77 that our ac5uired skill in analy6ing the past has largely hidden the uture rom us. This is hardly surprising when you consider that our past7knowledge is commonly held Fat least in academic and scienti ic circlesG to imply that there is no uture 77 no uture o possibility" no uture not already determined by the past. The horror o such a view 77 once it links up with the computer-s ability to preserve the past as our uture 77 echoes through a 5uery by one o the pioneers o arti icial intelligence. :ohn %cCarthy asked" <.hat do 3udges know that we cannot tell a computer? I4I The 5uestion is grotes5ue. Some theorists may" a ter all" have succeeded in reducing their own tasks very substantially to mere computation. 9ut a 3udge must orever be askingB by what metaphor can I understand this person be ore me? How does he di er rom anyone I have seen be ore? How may I grasp the di erence" and what decision may I impose" consistent with law" that will give him the best chance o coming to himsel ? There remains one convenient thing about an impoverished" ossi ied utureB it computes. ' course it computes 77 it is e0actly what the computer was designed to give us. 'ur true uture" on the other hand" can never be computed 77 so long" that is" as we retain the courage to call it into being at all. -eferences 1. Adler" 1?;4B +1741. +. ,ueggenbuhl7Craig" 1?=1B 41. 1. Chapter >" <Things That $un by Themselves"< e0plores these necessities in considerable detail. 4. Puoted in .ei6enbaum" 1?=;B +A=. Settlers in Cybers ace Howard $heingold is the sort o guy you-d eel sa e with even among the most disreputable" unshaven deni6ens o what he" like everyone else" pre ers to call cyberspace. That is 3ust as well" or occasionally he seems particularly drawn to the shadier haunts" where he introduces us to o beat 77 even threatening 77 characters o the &et" and takes delight in surprising us with their gentle and positive side. An ever genial and in ormative guide" he ushers his readers I1I on a bracing" personali6ed tour o the online world. .hile unabashedly playing <cheerleader< or the new networking technologies" he also calls up lucid visions o danger. And those who ind his outlook insu iciently one7sided will still en3oy contented hours mining his wealth o historical narrative" anecdote" and observation to support their own utopian or apocalyptic predilections.
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As one whose slightly alarmed imagination runs toward the apocalyptic" I am a little disappointed that $heingold-s critical eye is much more intent on discerning the human uture in the networked computer than recogni6ing the origin and uture o the computer in the increasingly computational bent o the human being. Surely it is only when the latter in5uiry complements the ormer that we can begin to assay the dangers we ace. 9ut $heingold-s geniality elicits an echoing geniality o my own" so I am more inclined to begin with our common ground as children o the Si0ties. It was" or me" a surprise to learn rom The .irtua$ Community 3ust how rooted in the Si0ties counterculture many o the earliest" person7to7person computer networks were. Stewart 9rand" who ounded the .(CC F.hole (arth -Cectronic CinkG" asserts latly that <the personal computer revolutionaries were the counterculture.< Several o the early leaders o the .(CC were alumni o the Hog 2arm commune" and $heingold 77 a .(CC veteran in his own right 77 seemed to ind himsel soul7sharing with other children o the Si0ties wherever he went to investigate the early history o computer bulletin boards and con erencing systems. <#ersonal computers and the #C industry"< he notes" <were created by young iconoclasts who had seen the CS) revolution i66le" the political revolution ail. Computers or the people was the latest battle in the same campaign< Fp. 4>G. Lost in the co nterc !t re I" too" grew up with that generation" and I" too" see in its passion and indignation and arousal a glimmering hope or the uture. 9ut here I am obligated to meet $heingold-s con essional 3ourney with a disclosure o my own. I never really signed on with my generation. .hen" in 1?;>" I made the re5uired" ritual visit to Haight7Ashbury" the scene there struck me as too silly to take seriously. ' course" I had already sealed my status as a generational outsider when" our years earlier Fthe year I entered collegeG I acted as a Chicago poll watcher on behal o the ,oldwater campaign. Something o the outsider has driven my restlessness ever since. .hen" in the Seventies" I ran an organic arm or several years" I ound mysel com ortable neither with the alternative ood network nor with the buttoned7down bankers rom whom we received operating unds. The social politics o the alternative types seemed too absurdly wrongheaded and unrealistic. FI ound it vastly more edi ying 77 not to mention fun 77 to listen to .illiam 2. 9uckley in debate than to endure the naive ramblings o those who saw themselves saving the world.G %eanwhile" the conventional types 77 3ust so ar as they registered no discontent with the social institutions to which they submitted 77 seemed to have lost their souls. It shocks some o my riends 77 or whom my behavior is the height o irresponsibility 77 to learn that I have never voted in a public election. FI was too young to vote or ,oldwater.G I never elt I had enough o a handle on the rea$ historical processes to make the act o voting meaning ul. I couldn-t see how any o the things that really mattered were ever touched upon by politicians. The gyros guiding the human passage upon earth" I thought" spin invisibly within us" where our nascent moral suspicions and imaginative understandings irst shape themselvesH everything about the political system" so ar as I could tell" served only to obscure what was important. I couldn-t help thinking that my <statement< in re using to vote was much more likely to have some minuscule awakening e ect upon mysel and others than the weight o a thousand votes in the pollsters- and sociologists- rude calculus. So I have spent twenty7 ive years standing apart" watching" and trying to understand. This is not an apologia 77 or" at least" not only that. I am not proud o the act that I have been so thoroughly cut o rom e0tended community or these twenty7 ive years. I see it more as a personal symptom than a cultural indictment. And yet" my relative isolation has taught me a ew things 77 above all else" to recogni6e the same symptoms in the larger society. And one thing has become pain ully" vividly clear to meB very ew in our society 77 not even those who most passionately cultivate community 77 5uite know what it is they seek" or where they might obtain it" or how to grasp hold o it when it is actually o ered to them. It is as i a certain isolation o sel is built into the structure o the human being today. I am convinced that much o the <community< we e0perience is more an e ort to bury the loneliness than to reckon with its causes. And I suspect that the causes have a lot to do with our ailure to acknowledge" let alone to have any use ul language or grasping" the spiritual sel whose cut7o condition is at issue. %ore and more" we try to lay hold o this sel in the intelligent machinery that re lects a vague shadow o it 77 which only accelerates our loss" even while temporarily anestheti6ing us against the pain. I now ind the larger social and political processes beckoning or the irst time. This book is one o my responses. Another has my amily" as I write" preparing a move 77 to a rural community centered around an organic arm" a school without computers" an intentional village or the mentally disabled" and an intellectual and artistic li e that rivals many a university town-s. .hatever the uture may actually hold" this move fee$s like the irst step across a li etime-s continental divide. 2or me it is" inally" a step toward community 77 and one or which I ear my computer is more likely to prove a distraction than a help. Pioneer #ays I am not the only person to live through these twenty7 ive years. 'ne hopes that the impulses that gave rise to the Hog 2arm will be ound" now matured and trans ormed" in the new virtual communities. In any case" $heingold makes it clear that we can understand the early history o virtual community only in the light o these impulses. The .(CC 77 which is at the center o $heingold-s story 77 was a kind o intentional community. Its ounders deliberately seeded it with discussion leaders who passionately believed in its potential or trans orming society. Its success was purchased" in part" by
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giving ree accounts to 3ournalists" who discovered in it a source or unusual" uture7oriented stories. ,iven this publicity" the .(CC began to draw rom a national and then international pool o idealistic computer networkers" sociologists studying the new virtual communities" participants in the irst online ,rate ul )ead discussion groups" and" eventually" anyone and everyone. <#eople who were looking or a grand collective pro3ect in cyberspace locked to the .(CC< Fp. 41G. All this newness and idealism accounts or many o the positive things $heingold sees in the early virtual communities. ' course" as he himsel points out" marked antisocial tendencies have also sur aced. :ohn #erry 9arlow 77 one o $heingold-s sub3ects and a co7 ounder o the (lectronic 2rontier 2oundation" as well as a ormer ,rate ul )ead lyricist 77 captured both sides o the truth in a distinctive wayB Cyberspace ... has a lot in common with the 1?th century .est. It is vast" unmapped" culturally and legally ambiguous" verbally terse .... hard to get around in" and up or grabs. Carge institutions already claim to own the place" but most o the actual natives are solitary and independent" sometimes to the point o sociopathy. It is" o course" a per ect breeding ground or both outlaws and new ideas about liberty. I+I The thing to take to heart" I think" is that neither the blatant outlawry nor the sheen o idealism tell us a whole lot about the uture shape o the territory once it is settled. They do remind us" though" that what we-ll inally have to ace is ourselves. This is critically important. %any are into0icated with the wild reedom" the sel 7determination" the escape rom tyranny" the unbounded opportunities or unchaperoned contact and association they discover in the &et. It all becomes a <new paradigm.< &ew paradigms may indeed arise" but we should not orget the old realities that remain. 'ne o those realities is the social re5uirement or structure and reliable sources o in ormation. Currently" many avoid the &et-s more boisterous districts because the signal7to7noise ratio is too low. Sur ing the Internet with an ear or the endless saloon gossip" the avalanches o sel 7published papers" announcements on every conceivable topic" uncertain news modulated through obscure channels" promotions o all sorts 77 it-s a notorious time sink Fnot to mention a rich source o hopelessly mi0ed metaphorsG. *ou 5uickly begin to look or the kind o established structure that enables you to make educated guesses 77 much as you say" <*es" I know what to e0pect rom this maga6ine" and it-s likely to contain something o interest.< As %ichael Heim remarks" <the need or stable channels o content and reliable processes o choice grows urgent.< I1I And 3ust because our society is organi6ing itsel around networking technology" those channels wi$$ take orm. .e" who work and play" will impose our structured pre erences upon the new media" 3ust as we have imposed our pre erences upon the printing press" television and every other technology. The se!f-a2sor2e# *et 9esides the idealism o a kind o pioneering counterculture" a second actor power ully a ects what $heingold inds in virtual communitiesB the historically inbred or sel 7re erential character o the &et. %any o those who are most enthusiastic about its possibilities are the same people who develop the enabling so tware and hardware" or who write about cyberspace" or who study it Fthe lood o sociologists and anthropologists let loose upon the &et is legendaryG" or who are trying to make policy or it" or who 77 like so many schoolteachers 77 have been told that it is important or their uture" so they-re desperately trying to igure it out. $heingold relates" or e0ample" how he was invited to participate in a F ace7to7 aceG .ashington con erence. 9e ore attending" he opened a discussion on the .(CC. A ter spending a ew minutes a day there or si0 weeks" he possessed <more than two hundred pages o e0pert advice rom my own panel.< The topic o the con erence he had been invited toB communication systems for an information a)e Fp. 8?G. This sel 7re erential use o the &et colors much o $heingold-s book. .hether it-s organi6ations like the (lectronic 2rontier 2oundation or Computer #ro essionals or Social $esponsibility" or online activists who are convinced computer networking will reinvigorate democracy" or other activists who believe computer networking will redeem education" or yet other activists who are attracted by an almost mystical vision o electronic culture F<cyberculture"< as they are likely to call itG 77 in most o these cases &et success stories occur or a good reasonB not only do these people use the &et in their work" but their work is a+out the &etH o ten it is even aimed at promotin) the &et. 'ne hopes that the &et would <succeed< at least or them. Their e0periences" however" may o er little insight into broader social issues. The sett!ing of cy2erspace $heingold is particularly impressed by the <enormous leverage< the &et can give ordinary citi6ens at relatively little cost 77 <intellectual leverage" social leverage" commercial leverage" and most important" political leverage< Fp. 4G. I ind this notion o leverage rather hard to understand against the backdrop o a uture in which the &et has become as ubi5uitous as everyone e0pects 77 that is" when the promotion o the &et itsel is no longer a primary unction o the &et. $heingold cites a success ul political campaign by online activist )ave Hughes" who stunned his local city council by mobili6ing 1=8 citi6ens to turn out or a council meeting. They won their case" and Hughes credited a computer network with making the
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organi6ational e ort possible. The credit was no doubt well deservedH the council members were presumably ba led by this invisibly con3ured turnout. *es" the practiced gunslinger in the 'ld .est had a decided advantage 77 but only until law and order was established. .hat becomes o the activist-s di erential advantage 77 his special leverage 77 when the political process has ully adapted itsel to networked communication and a$$ campaigns are &et campaigns? .ill the individual citi6en then ind it easier to a ect the political process" or will the sheer" inundative bulk and sophistication o machine7assisted" well7 inanced activism put politics even more out o reach than the T@7driven 3uggernauts o our own day? The same sort o 5uestion applies in many arenas. There-s a race now by investors to <guarantee< themselves an incremental advantage in the inancial markets by employing computeri6ed trading programs. Some o these programs are created in think tanks employing #h.). mathematicians and economists who bring the newest and most esoteric statistical theories to bear upon their task. The aim o the programsB to manage sometimes massive transactions on a split7second basis in order to secure a marginal leg up on mere chance. Such investment mechanisms are in continual lu0" or the discovery o a winning ormula 5uickly changes the probabilistic and psychological matri0 upon which the ormula was based. How is the <little guy< to compete? Similarly" all the talk about individual empowerment through electronically accessible in ormation really has more to do with the di erential advantage or a ew players early in the game than it does with any undamental social change. It-s rather like the pyramid schemeB those who are 5uickest o the mark win bigH the rest must hope eventually to climb back to the break7even point in a game that is now speeded up and very likely more demanding than it was be ore. The common response to these observations is that the individual77 the <plain citi6en"< small investor" modest entrepreneur 77 can use the new technology to counter the advantage o the big players. I will be able to send <knowbots< roaming the &et in search o in ormation use ul to me. I can buy my own so tware to do programmed trading. I can tie into the world &et and become my own activist. 9ut this gets ridiculous ast. (very new leap o technology simply cranks up the speed o the game another notch. .hat improves my e iciency does the same or the millions o other players. As Cangdon .inner has pointed out" the availability o low7cost computing power may move the baseline that de ines electronic dimensions o social in luence" but it does not necessarily alter the relative balance o power. !sing a personal computer makes one no more power ul vis7a7vis" say" the &ational Security Agency than lying a hang glider establishes a person as a match or the !.S. Air 2orce. I4I Trying to ind a calculus o advantage in the spiraling competition between the machine7assisted individual and the machine7assisted System strikes me as a ruitless pastime. (ventually" we will have to step back and reali6e that there are only two things in this pictureB on the one hand" increasingly power ul" machine7assisted machines" and" on the other hand" you and I. I you and I are looking or <empowerment"< or an advantage over the ne0t person" then that-s the sort o society we will create" and that same spirit is what we-ll encounter in the machinery 77 only here it will harden into a volition substantially independent o our own wishes. I " on the other hand" we are truly and wisely seeking human community" then we will eventually igure out the right uses or machinery 77 however drastic our change o direction must be 77 and our human ocus will prevent our embedding urther anti7human tendencies in that machinery. (ither way" the uture shape o society is to be sought" inally" within the human being" not in technological assessment. "ho threatens the *etA $heingold makes many bows in the appro0imate direction o this truth. He certainly understands that the human uture re5uires" not an endless drive or competitive advantage" but rather a spirit o cooperation. It is one o his virtues that he repeatedly returns to the truth that it is you and I who must make our virtual communities hospitable placesH the issue" he says more than once" still hangs in the balance. And in discussing leverage" he cautions usB 9ut the technology will not in itsel ul ill that potentialH this latent technical power must be used intelligently and deliberately by an in ormed population. %ore people must learn about that leverage and learn to use it while we still have the reedom to do so .... The odds are always good that big power and big money will ind a way to control access to virtual communities.... Fp. 8G 9ut here and throughout the book he shows a tendency 77 perhaps carried over rom the counterculture 77 to inger anonymous and institutional antagonistsB the <big boys< who <divide up the power and loot<H <malevolent political leaders with their hands on the controls o a &et<H the <governments and private interests< who turn the media away rom democratic debate toward talk shows and commercials Fpp. +=?" +>?G. This is 3usti ied so ar as we have tended to invest certain institutions with a li e o their own. 'ne thing to reali6e here" however" is that the computer itsel will <receive< these unconscious tendencies even more eagerly than the corporation. I8I A second thing is that" ultimately" even these institutionali6ed and mechani6ed pro3ections o our nature must be traced back to ourselves. It is we who watch the shows" we who populate the massive government bureaucracies" and we who" day by day" transact the nation-s corporate business. .hen $heingold says that <the most insidious attack on our rights to a reasonable degree o privacy might come not rom a political dictatorship but rom the marketplace< Fp. +?+G" he is doubtless correct. 9ut the citi6ens who determine the character o the marketplace are the same citi6ens who will make the &et whatever it becomes. .hen we-re all in the electronic marketplace together"
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will our enemy be any less ourselves than when we were all in the industrial marketplace together? .hen the &et subsumes all social unctions" will the balance o healthy and destructive orces be more positive than we already know it to be? Seeing the f t re in o rse!ves $heingold passes along many touching stories" such as that o Chary" a participant in the .(CC-s #arenting discussion group. Chary came down with leukemia and moved to Houston. .hen he checked into a Houston hospital" he continued to log onto the .(CC rom his hospital room. Some o the #arenting group <got together and personally tie7dyed regulation lab coats and hospital gowns or Chary to wear around the hospital corridors.< 9y such acts true community is indeed nourished" and it is heart7 warming to ind an online group so generous in spirit and so committed to the cultivation o community. It is also an important signpost or the utureB this is one way we can use the &et. That stories like this tell us a whole lot about how we wi$$ use the &et 77 how we will shape it and it will shape society 77 nevertheless seems to me doubt ul. The overall e ects o the telephone upon community are probably not e0plained very well by the act that people can and do e0tend acts o generosity toward riends or strangers over the phone. I think $heingold would agree that this points us only to a range o possibilities" not likelihoods. .here" then" do we look or the likelihoods? .hen I think o a leukemia patient in a hospital" the irst thing that occurs to me is how inhospitable that environment is likely to be 77 and how much it might drive anyone to a network terminal or support. .hy have our hospitals become what they are? How is it that we have the most technically sophisticated medicine in the world" and yet have largely e0punged the human element rom it? There is nothing more intimately human than the healing processH in it we must come to terms with ourselves" our destiny on earth" our deepest human connections. Healing is" in the true sense o the words" a ministry" a laying on o hands. I there is a place where community ought to have ormed" it is here. And yet" given what hospitals have already become" and given the promise o new technologies we are even now embracing 77 remotely e0ecuted surgery" computer7generated diagnosis" AT%7dispensed medications 77 what are the prospects or medical communities o healing? In sumB I would" as ar as possible" take the #arenting group over the hospital" and that is one reason I am pessimistic about the high7 tech uture. The medical establishment has been precipitated rom the numerous currents and countercurrents o a comple0 society" and tells us much more about the kind o meaning we assign to technology than any pioneering e0periments on the .(CC. .e may hope the more success ul o those e0periments will begin to shape the uture" in however small a way. 9ut i we plunge into that uture without being realistic about the social orces o the present 77 i we give ree rein to whatever the engines o technology spew out 77 we can only provoke disaster. Some o this is" I think" implicit in $heingold-s comment about sharing over the &etB $eciprocity is a key element o any market7based culture" but the arrangement I-m describing eels to me more like a kind o gi t economy in which people do things or one another out o a spirit o building something between them" rather than a spreadsheet7 calculated 5uid pro 5uo. .hen that spirit e0ists" everybody gets a little e0tra something" a little sparkle" rom their more practical transactionsH di erent kinds o things become possible when this mind7set pervades. Conversely" people who have valuable things to add to the mi0 tend to keep their heads down and their ideas to themselves when a mercenary or hostile 6eitgeist dominates an online community Fp. 8?G. The only thing to add is that the technology o networking does nothing to implement a charitable spirit. In act" it appears to add a new level o challenge" since it-s easier to mask one-s sel ishness or disinterest in a world o electronic e0change than it is where sharing is supported and encouraged by a more tangible and present community. The &et demands a higher order o communal awareness rom a society that has already ailed badly at the <easier< levels. 'ur potential or a descent" under the &et-s in luence" rom bad to worse is chilling 77 and all the more likely at a time when so many are hailing the &et as a nearly automatic cure. The &echanis&s of o r f t re I " as I noted at the outset" the computer has its origin in the computational bent o humans" we must look there or its uture as well. $heingold-s caution notwithstanding" it seems to me that the most ominous symptom o what lies ahead is ound in the ease with which so many &et enthusiasts argue directly rom patterns o technology to emerging social realities. The resulting analogies are o ten strikingly naive. )oes the &et give everyone a chance to type into a terminal? That spells democracy. )oes the &et put people in touch with each other? That spells community. )oes the &et make in ormation databases available? That spells a more educated and cultured society. Such leaps rom a purely mechanical or ormal set o relationships to the speci ically human are breathtaking. I;I All o which brings me back to the Si0ties lower children. At some deep level they knew their challenge to society was both radical and ounded upon a yet7unreali6ed potential in the human being. Sticking lowers down the barrels o the pigs- guns truly was an earth7shaking gesture. Cike the lone Chinese standing in ront o a tank on Tienanmen S5uare" it symboli6ed the act that something in the human being 77 some remaining spark o innocence and hope and bravery 77 held more promise or the uture o society than all the mechanisms o raw" earthly power. This remains 3ust as true when those mechanisms have become largely in ormational.

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I am not sure whether the more sophisticated" electronic <counterculture< o our day has kept a grip on this truth. There are some encouraging recognitions in $heingold-s book" and yet one senses in the electronic culture as a whole that a critical balance has shi ted" and that the main hope today is elt to lie in the technology itsel . I this is true" then no doomsaying can ade5uately capture the horrors o the uture. #erhaps that is why I warmed so much to $heingold-s genial guidance. 'ne naturally hopes to stand within a <magic circle"< shielded by largeness o spirit rom what is to come. And largeness o spirit is a shield 77 but it will no longer prevail i we as a society incarcerate it within the orms o our technology. -eferences 1. $heingold-s book is The .irtua$ Community F$eading %AB Addison7.esley" 1??1G. An earlier version o this commentary on the book appeared in the electronic 3ournal" %nterpersona$ Computin) and Techno$o)y" vol. +" no. + F1??4G. +. 9arlow" 1??A. 1. Heim" 1??1B 1A4. 4. .inner" 1?>;B 11+. 8. See chapter >" <Things That $un by Themselves.< ;. 2or an elaboration o these thoughts" see chapter ;" <&etworks and Communities.<

(n )eing Res onsible for Earth :erry %ander thinks we should trash computers" along with much o the rest o modern technology. He is" I think" as close to being right as one can get while being crucially" tragically wrong. %ander-s %n The A+sence Of The (acred // The Fai$ure of Techno$o)y and the (urviva$ of the %ndian Nations is a pro oundly important book" and I would give much to guarantee its broad dissemination throughout our society. 'ne can scarcely participate responsibly in contemporary discussions o technology while will ully ignoring %ander-s broad thesis. "e nee# to see o rse!ves Technology" %ander tells us" is not neutralH it has a mind o its own. The same goes or businessesH the corporation" which %ander rightly likens to a machine" is driven by an unconsidered compulsion to grow" and is biased toward the pro itable employment o new technology" regardless o the social conse5uences. Those conse5uences 77 whether we-re talking about the telephone" the television" or genetic engineering 77 are rarely visible during the early stages o development. &or is there any realistic public discussion about the e ects and desirability o new technologies. 9y the time the body politic becomes aware o problems with technology" it is usually a ter they are well installed in the system and their e ects are too late to reverse. 'nly now" our decades a ter the introduction o computers" are there any rumblings o discontent" any reali6ations o their ull implications. 9y the time the alarm inally goes o " technologies have intertwined with one another to create yet another generation o machines" which makes unraveling them ne0t to impossible" even i society had the will to do it. As the interlocking and interweaving and spawning o new technologies take place" the weave o technology becomes ever tighter and more di icult to separate .... Technological evolution leads inevitably to its own ne0t stages" which can be altered only slightly. Fpp. 1>>7>?G .hen a society is trapped in a pattern it does not even think to escape" the important thing is to o er viewpoints outside the pattern" enabling people to see themselves rom new and une0pected angles. %ander does this in two ways. 2irst" he shows us modern society in a historical conte0t. Considering that much o his sketch spans only a ew decades" it is surprisingly e ective in giving us resh eyes. He mentions" or e0ample" how" during the 2i ties" his neighborhood would gather around the only available television set at certain times during the weekB @iewing was a group event" with sociali6ing be ore and a ter. Soon" however" each amily had its own set" or sets. #rogramming e0tended to all hours" day and night. A community event was trans ormed into an isolated e0perienceB at irst" amilies watched aloneH then soon each individual was le t alone in his or her own room" silently watching. Fp. 1;G The entire neighborhood changed its character" yet no social assessment" no decision to embrace or modi y such e ects accompanied the change. It 3ust happened 77 it was <the nature o things< 77 and so was accepted as part o li e-s inevitability.
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%ander-s second strategy or getting us to see ourselves is to con ront us with wholly incompatible cultures 77 the various American Indian nations" as well as native peoples on other continents. &othing could be more dramatic than the collision between our own cultural steamroller and those indigenous races that might have opted out o our mad technological rush" but whose options were taken away rom them. At its worst" this collision leads to the almost overnight destruction o amily" tribe" and spiritual conviction under an ine0cusable and continuing policy o cultural e0tinction. It is worth the price o the book 3ust to learn something about what happens when private land ownership and the ballot" or e0ample" are orced upon a people whose connection to the land is much more pro ound than the laws o economic ownership can ever recogni6e" and whose tradition o consensus building" rooted in the unhurried contemplation o an enduring tribal wisdom" may have much to teach us about social governance. Co&p teri:e# techno!ogy is not a fi,e# B antity %ander-s criti5ue seems to me unassailable in broad outlineB technology now runs out o control" and prominent among the conse5uences o this act is the unprecedented destruction o human cultures. However" a penchant or reckless commentary mars his e0position. A ew e0amplesB %ander repeats uncritically the wholly uncertain claim that we ace crises o o6one depletion and global warming. It would have been better merely to point out that we are playing $ussian roulette with our environment. He asserts 77 probably wrongly 77 that computers give large companies competitive advantages over smaller ones. He swallows the absurd" i o t7repeated" opinion that the :udeo7 Christian religion desancti ies the world and places mankind in oppressive domination over it. To ail to distinguish between the sources o :udeo7Christian belie and their perversion within certain strands o .estern culture is like seeing a propensity toward alcoholism in the religion o American Indians. In his ill7advised singling out o $onald $eagan F<the television president<G" %ander notes various <'rwellian< pronouncements o the ormer chie e0ecutive" such as when he <unabashedly claimed that massive rearming was the way to disarm.< 9ut to leave it at that is to push the e3ection button" leeing the dilemmas and necessities o the human condition. There is" a ter all" a case to be made that $eagan was right" and that he succeeded. There has long been too much silliness and con ormity in the political orthodo0ies o the various cultural re orm movementsH one hates to see so e ective a contrarian thinker as %ander ollowing along blindly. These peccadillos do not vitiate the main argument. 9ut %ander does neglect one critical actB what we have embodied in technology are our own habits o thought. *es" our arti acts gain a li e o their own" but it is" in a very real sense" our li e. .e too easily ignore the ways in which we in use these arti acts with the inespun web o our own" largely subconscious habits o thought. The need is to raise these habits to ull consciousness" and then take responsibility or them. This is most clearly true or the computer. (verything we might complain about in the computer 77 its insistence upon dealing with abstractions" its reduction o the 5ualitative to a set o 5uantities" its insertion o a nonspatial but e ective distance between users" its pre erence or unambiguous and e iciently manipulative relationships in all undertakings 77 these computational traits have long been tendencies o our own thinking and behavior" especially as in luenced by science. Trashing the current technology there ore gains us nothing i we ourselves do not change 77 we will" out o habit" simply invent a new prison or ourselves using whatever materials are at hand. 9ut i we can change our habits o mind" then %ander-s argument that many technological products have a i0ed" irremediable bias and should there ore be shunned loses its validity. To #estroy or to create In his crusade against technology and its enabling mindset" %ander dismisses all human e0ploration as a 5uest or <economic gain" military advantage" the satis action o the ego" and satis action o technological society-s intrinsic drive to e0pand< Fp. 11?G. Similarly" he can see in the human hope to ul ill <nature-s evolutionary design< only a covert e0tension o the doctrine o %ani est )estiny Fpp. 14A741G. He is right this arB there is no denying our wholesale abuse o our trust as stewards o earth. 9ut we have already been given" by %ander-s own testimony" the godlike authority to destroy the earth. To re use to accept the e5ually godlike task o redirecting that authority toward healing and the ul illment o earth-s potentials is to guarantee ultimate ruin. It may be nearly unthinkable that" in our present state o sleepwalking subservience to technology" we could begin to tame the monster" to make it the obedient servant o truly human ends. 9ut Fas %ander acknowledgesG it is e5ually unthinkable that we should simply turn our back upon technology in the manner he advises. The one course does not seem to me more di icult or less likely than the other. .hat is tragic about %ander-s admirable book is that" by latly re3ecting the computer and other orms o technology" it invites us away rom e0actly that sense o deep" positive responsi+i$ity or technology without which we can have little hope or the uture. There is no true responsibility that is not a creative responsibility" re5uiring human art and arti ice. To put it di erentlyB another word or responsibility is <dominion< 77not the dominion o raw power" but o e ective wisdom. The human task" however much we have botched it to date" will remain decisive or our planet. The earth is in our hands. %uch in the .estern tradition 77 in which %ander seems to ind ew redeeming 5ualities 77 is re5uisite to our inescapable responsibilities. This includes all that is best in the uni5uely .estern development o scienti ic disciplineB the habit o rigorous" detached observation" the inely tuned mental machinery o analysis" the re5uirement that theories wor'. 9ut %ander is right when he
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claims that" in the name o this discipline" we have lost our bearings and spawned technologies that now run amok through the countryside. The glimmers o hope here and there 77 increasing acceptance o biological pest management and other techni5ues o the organic armerH sensitive ecological studies o the environmentH the nascent e ort to understand the principles by which indigenous peoples have cared or the earthH the slowly growing awareness that technology threatens to make us as much as we make it 77 none o these can come to ruition within a science still stubbornly determined to e0clude the human spirit. .e are indeed caretakers o our planet. 9ut even the most reverent gardener must invent" contrive" ashion clever devices" and discover how to oster rebirth amid the most e0tensive decay and ailure. This e0ercise o a devout" wise" spirit7connected authority over the earth is surely what the earth craves 77 today more than at any other time in our history. True" current technologies e0press our disastrous abdication o this authority. 'ur machines begin to run by themselves" and to serve their own ends" and we ourselves are carried along. %ander is right in this. 9ut that is e0actly why human responsibility must be taken seriously 77 even to the point o <redeeming< technology. 2or I think it is air to say that we can no longer stop or even redirect the engine o technological change by brute" e0ternal orce. Such orce is the principle o the engine itsel " and only strengthens it. .e must tame technology by rising above it and reclaiming what is not mechanical in ourselves. And i we can manage somehow to do that 77 I do not say that we wi$$ do it 77 who knows what the technology o the uture may become?

'etworks and Communities It is not surprising that in a culture widely cited or its loss o community" the word <community< itsel should come in or heavy use. The more we lack something" the more we may be ascinated by ragmentary glimpses o it. A starving man will discover ood where the well ed see only garbage. 'ne doesn-t" however" e0pect the starving man to pretend his meal is a catered ban5uet. And yet" the magical delivery o precisely such trans ormed goods seems to be what many e0pect o the electronic network. 2or e0ample" the publisher o The %nternet Business 0ourna$" %ichael Strangelove 77 articulating the aith o a thundering host 77 is sure that <the Internet represents a return to the undamental dynamics o human e0istenceB communication and community.< I1I I need not remind you o the special a inity wanderers on the &et seem to have or this word <community.< .e hear about online communities" the Internet community" global electronic communities" virtual communities" and so on. There are senses in which this usage is per ectly reasonableB human community in some orm or another will naturally take hold o whatever mechanisms we create or e0pression and communication 77 whether car and road" telephone" computer network" or even the television talk show. In most cases" the physical media are not likely to become identi ied in our minds with the very substance o community itsel . 9ut have you noticed how easily <network< now seems almost to imply <community< 77 as i a set o electronic connections automatically constituted community? The phrase <net communities< captures this well" or its meaning slides e ortlessly between <a matri0 o communication channels< and <communal human e0change.< There is no doubt that physical networks will dramatically a ect the orms o our communities. 9ut i we ail to distinguish radically between such networks and the personal sources o community" then the only sure thing is that we will continue to degrade what community remains. I+I Techno!ogy is not co&& nity .hat is true o community holds or democracy as well" or democracy is a set o human institutions Fand" or that matter" styles o communityG rather than a group o technical tools. And yet" even as sensible an observer as Howard $heingold was tempted into remarking that <i a 99S Fcomputer 9ulletin 9oard SystemG isn-t a democrati6ing technology" there is no such thing. I1I The assumption that networks constitute some sort o positive reali6ation o " or at least predisposition to" community and democracy is e0traordinarily widespread. 'ne repeatedly encounters the thought that Fin the words o one Internet contributorG <the &et is undamentally democrati6ing and leveling. I4I Apparently" the act that a &et connection may reach into each home substitutes in this thinking or any consideration o how people will actually re$ate to each other over their connections. The relation is somehow thought to be given by the connecting technology itsel . Another &et voice agreesB

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.hile I-m not orecasting !topia" I think networks o the uture will be the most incredibly egalitarian technology ever invented. It will trans orm our entire societies. Imagine that homeless people or single parent children can <interconnect< with anybody who is willing to talk to them in the wor$d. The possibilities are rather da66ling. Sure" there might be even cyberspatial outcasts" but the point is that we will be doing at $east as well as we are now" which is not something to <write home< about. I8I .hat seems so obvious to this speaker as to re5uire no de ense is that giving &et connections to the socially isolated will at least tend to lead them out o their isolation in happy ways. It-s a stunning leap o aith. .ho constitutes the society that isolated them in the irst place 77 persons di erent rom those who will make the &et whatever it becomes? )id the telephone 77 bringing with it the ability to call anyone in a city o ive million people 77 move the city toward more intimate community" or has it merely enabled us to hunker down within our separate castles" talking" perhaps" to more and more people while cut o rom community more than ever be ore? I take all this to be part o the general tendency to substitute thoughts about technology or thoughts about the actual terms o human e0change. ,iven this substitution" a community is no longer" in the irst instance" a group o people bound together by certain mutual concerns" interests" activities" and institutions Fwhich ind e0pression through whatever technical and nontechnical means are at handG. $ather" a community becomes the mere <instantiation< o a network diagram that shows the available technical means or interaction. It-s rather as i you traced on a map a set o automobile routes" and then ocused upon this <community< o roads. *ou certainly could learn something about the people who use these roads by analy6ing tra ic patternsH and all roads provide" to one degree or another" a site or e0pressions o community. 9ut you are hardly likely to conclude that the asphalt network itsel is decisive or constitutin) community. &ow" it-s true that many so7called &et communities do ind almost their sole e0pression across certain electronic links. )escribe the online tra ic" and you-ve 5uite neatly characteri6ed almost everything that distinctively binds these people together. This neat characteri6ation" however" results precisely rom the e0traordinarily restricted nature o the community" by any traditional standards. >i!#e# vision The commentator who seems most determined to read one7sided social implications into networking technologies is ,eorge ,ilder. He comes very close" as we will see" to reconceiving a network-s distributed intelligence as the very substance o an ennobled society. ,ilder-s head is abu66 with acts and igures about the technologies that will <come blindingly to the ore< during the ne0t ew years. His central conviction is that peer7to7peer communication will replace broadcast FradioIT@G and centrally switched FtelephoneG communication. <.hether o ering 8AA channels or thousands" television will be irrelevant in a world without channels" where you can always order e0actly what you want when you want it" and where every terminal commands the communications power o a broadcast station today.< I;I The reason or this is that < iber optics is going to render bandwidth and hert6 virtually ree.< .e will no longer have to choose rom among communication channels dictated by others. $ather" we will simply sit at our terminals and tune in to whatever we wish" anywhere in what ,ilder calls < iberspace.< 'ne thread o glass the width o a human hair" he tells us" can carry one thousand times the content o today-s entire radio spectrum. So we will all have access to everything" and can speak to everywhere. !rom couch otato to mogul ,ilder-s technical vision may" or all I know" be accurate" but his prediction o the social conse5uences is startlingly naive. &oting the <1AA"AAA acts o television violence< watched by the average thirteen7year7old child" and citing the <obtuse denial that such a diet could a ect behavior"< he goes on to indict the television industry" which ignores the act that people are not inherently couch potatoesH given a chance" they talk back and interact. #eople have little in common with one another e0cept their prurient interests and morbid ears and an0ieties. Aiming its are at this lowest7common denominator target" television gets worse year a ter year. And what does ,ilder believe will save us rom television? The act that" instead o ive hundred channels to choose rom" we can choose anythin) 77 and can talk back i we want. .hen intelligence and control are embedded in the devices at our ingertips" it means that <technologies are much more servants than rulers o JourK li e.< %oreover" we can be assured that <con idence in the new paradigm ... does not spring only rom the desire or a better culture" and it cannot be stemmed by some new global plague o passivity and tube addiction.< .hy? 9ecause <propelling the new order is the most power ul 3uggernaut in the history o technologyB an impending million old rise in the cost7e ectiveness o computers and their networks.< Somehow this apparently means that the new" whi66y devices will also have a power o psychological and social healing. ,ilder was asked about the <utopian< ring o his hope" since <anything comple0 sel 7organi6es into nested hierarchies" 3ust in order to manage itsel < 77 a patently alse assumption by the interviewer" incidentally" since it doesn-t apply to living organisms. 9ut ,ilder-s response couldn-t be more tellingB

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*ou need nested hierarchies" but the real miracle o microelectronics is that these e0traordinarily comple0 hierarchies can be incorporated into individual silicon chips" with virtual supercomputer capabilities .... So hierarchies do indeed e0ist" but they are ubi5uitously distributed" which renders them an e)a$itarian force. .hen everybody commands a supercomputer" you give the average owner o a work station the power that an industrial tycoon commanded in the industrial era" or that a T@ station owner commands in the age o broadcasting. %n other words! the hierarchy is in the si$icon rather than in the human or)ani1ation2 So you have this incredible distribution o power. J(mphasis added.K So where the industrial tycoons and T@ station owners blew it" unaccountably tempted by crass gain" the rest o us 77 once we can grab power or ourselves 77 will save the day. I we have intelligent and discriminating devices at our ingertips" we will use them intelligently and discriminatingly. I we can address anything we wish to anyone we wish" we will speak with a previously unwonted maturity. .e-re no longer going to let those T@ moguls keep us down and reveling in smut. ,ilder cites the Internet" with its distributed intelligence" as <an e0citing kind o metaphor or spontaneous order.< )umb the &et down by eliminating the central" controlling intelligence" distribute that intelligence to the periphery where it is under control o a hundred million users" and wondrous patterns o human beauty will take shape within the le0ible" receptive" glass palace o iberspace. *es" order arises rom comple0ity" but it arises through comple0 laws" not magic. And in all social a airs the nature o the order depends upon the nature o the human being. .e have discovered that we could not create a healthy order in televisionland when the task was as simple as clicking a button to register our pre erence or decent programming. .ill we now ind it easier to impose healthy order upon the Internet by redirecting our proclivities toward a vastly more di use and challenging task? .e already have in the corporation Fincluding the entertainment corporations ,ilder chastisesG an e0ample o emergent" humanlike behavior arising rom myriad" comple0" unanaly6able interactions. Is that behavior somehow more automatically responsible than the individual entrepreneur-s? .ill it become so as soon as every employee has an intelligent terminal? I=I )id the old7 ashioned neighborhood gossip network" with its e0tensive" peer7to7peer connectivity" automatically generate reliable news? Wake u and smell the waste roducts It is precisely +ecause a comple0 order o one sort or another will emerge rom the new technologies that we must be cautious. The order is not given in advance" and is not inherent in the technology itsel " which only de ines a range o possibilities. The orm we give to those possibilities will re lect ourselves. At the same time" we have to acknowledge that the order is substantially biased in advance" because the orms o the basic technology a$ready re lect what we have become 77 and it happens that what we have become can be read in our e0isting" television7centered culture. Any thinking person has to askB I the computer is about to merge with the television screen" is it because our society eels compelled to redeem television" or is it rather because the cultural orces behind television 77 the most irresistible communication medium in history 77 are e0tending their reach in dramatic" new ways. 2iberspace is a glass mirror. The only 5uestion is whether we will struggle through to what is highest in us" or instead give way to those same" subterranean" overmastering currents that seemed always to have the last say when we clicked the remote control. The latter path is as easy as remaining passive 77 as easy" that is" as believing the &et is only a orce or good and will there ore <take care o itsel .< It is not a matter o bewailing everyone-s bad taste and trying to protect people rom themselves. It-s a matter o realism about the challenges ahead o us. ,ilder 77 mesmeri6ed" I suspect" by glamorous ormulations o chaos and comple0ity theoryH by the naive promises o arti icial intelligenceH by dreams o a new" bioengineered ,enesisH and by the undeniable appeal o other enticing moti s in a grand myth o automatic" evolution7driven Fand now also technology7drivenG #rogress 77 ails to reckon with this truthB the more comple0 and indirect the mechanisms through which human actions come to e0pression" the more you and % must +e masters of ourse$ves. #utting it the other way aroundB the more degrees o reedom we have in e0pressing ourselves 77 in pro3ecting ourselves every which way into our environment 77 the easier it is or the emergent social pattern to be taken over by unruly collective" or subconscious" powers 77 easier" that is" unless each o us manages to be uncommonly awa'e. 2ar rom being able to rela0 about what emerges rom comple0ity" we are being asked today to take conscious responsibility in one domain a ter another that our ancestors could not even have named" let alone have thought about. 2rom the environment to the rule o law among nations" rom genetic engineering to virtual realities" rom ailing social structures to ailing value systems" the message is unambiguousB <*ou can no longer remain unconscious where you slept be oreH one way or the other" you are creating your uture. .ake up be ore you ind that the devils within you have done the creating.< Characteristically" ,ilder dismisses some o these latter7day concerns with remarkable optimismB <It-s utter garbage to say that our grandchildren won-t live as well as we do. #eople who say this 3ust don-t see the technology. They live in this bi6arre world o thermodynamics" where entropy rules" and we-re dominated by our waste products. It is very short7sighted.< ,ilder is right" to the e0tent that our waste products are not the first concern. The irst concern is the state o mind that allowed us to treat &ature as a to0ic waste disposal site" and then to view ourselves as having e0hibited nothing more than a technical de ect. That
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the polluting stance itse$f may entail great su ering or both mankind and the earthH that the inner ugliness and loss o meaning rom which this stance arises may lead to crises 5uite apart rom the e0ternally poisonous ones 77 such possibilities apparently do not occur to ,ilder. Ma%ing contact It is a use ul e0ercise to look at how intelligence has been impressed upon the machinery o communication" and then to ask yoursel what social unctions this automated intelligence is illing in or. There is" or e0ample" the e0tremely subtle intelligence o the many layers o digital switching hardware and so tware upon which the &et is built. 'ne conse5uence o this is captured in a well7known observationB <The &et treats censorship like a mal unction" and routes around it.< That is" issues o propriety" ormerly decided by competing values and opinions within a community" are now turned over to an automatic mechanism. Cooking more directly at the switching machinery itsel " we can say that it enables each o us" in the most remarkably e icient manner" to make contact with individuals and groups around the world. 9ut what does ma'in) contact really mean? It all depends. As an intermediate case" the telephone can help us see the range o possibilities. Telephones" too" are based on impressive switching technology" and they allow me to call almost anyone I wish. 9ut telephoning retains at least some o the human signi icance o ma'in) contact 77 as e0pressed" or e0ample" in that <loaded< initial moment when I must declare mysel to someone I have called out o the blue. Such a moment tends to mobili6e the character 77 the presence 77 o the two personalities involved" whether they happen to be rude or considerate" shy or daring" clever or dull. (ven so" the telephone conversants will likely remain ar less ully engaged than they would in a ace7to7 ace meeting. .ith the &et-s intelligence" however" I can direct my message to a single stranger" or to a thousand at once" with scarcely so much as an interruption o my reveries. It is not that the &et orces such detachmentH it doesn-t. 9ut the &et is more than willing to assume the whole burden o ma'in) contact" i I am willing to leave it at that. I am ree to skip the loaded moment altogether. 'ne mailbo0 gets in touch with another. To make anything more o the movement toward contact 77 to bring more o mysel to it 77 I must consciously e0ert mysel where" in ace7to7 ace encounter" the e ort occurred more naturally and could be more ully e0pressed. &othing re5uires this e ort o me. In act" I can-t help eeling a bit uneasy in talking about the sort o inner wor' one might do when preparing to ire o an email message to someone else. It seems slightly a ected. I>I .hat" a ter all" is such work? 9ut i the answer has become ha6y or me" it is because the immediate realities o personal e0change have become ha6y. I have been losing sight o the various aspects o mysel called up by the human being be ore me 77 the insecurity and invitation to rashness when I must think and respond <on my eet< Fvery di erent in 5uality rom the rashness o &et lamingGH the need to be receptive to every une0pected signal rom the other" and to recogni6e something o mysel re lected in itH my immediate like or dislike o traits e0traneous or relevantH the obscure promptings o will rom hidden places within me" perhaps too sudden to disguiseH the various de enses o an ego that must present itsel on all ronts rather than through words that have wholly detached themselves rom meH and" above all" the underlying moral and esthetic coloring o each moment" the respect or disregard or the delicate conditions in which words o wisdom may thrive" the e0traordinary challenge in honoring the other person-s autonomy and potential. The list could go on. 9ut it all does seem a little pretentious as I type the words here onto my screen" and that is what worries me. .hen someone stands in ront o me" the issues are much more immediate 77 I do not need to <recall< them rom 5uite the same distance" or with 5uite the same a ectation. Shielding ourselves from intrusion The alternative" o course" is simply to put such issues out o mind. To all appearances" ,ilder does this when he attempts to soothe the prevailing ears about invasion o privacy. He tells us that <what is really an invasion o privacy is a telemarketer who gets you out o bed or the shower. They don-t have any idea who you are" no notion o what you want.< Those who possess a thorough database o in ormation about you" on the other hand" can <call you and try to solve your problem. That is much less o an invasion than JisK an intrusion by a company that doesn-t know anything about you.< The idea is that we should be glad when companies have more complete in ormation about us" because then they can serve our needs better. ,ilder will doubtless have a harder time selling this view than he will some o his others. %ore important" however" than his conclusion are the premises underlying itB So a lot o the so7called invasion o privacy will be a positive e0perience or most people. Computer communications can be sorted through" and you can keep what you want and kill what you don-t. Increasingly" as your communication is channeled through computers" you will increase your control over it. It-s the dumb terminal" the phone" which is the model o the violation. It violates your time and attention because it-s dumb. I you have a really smart terminal that can sort through the communications and identi y them" you can re3ect anything you don-t want. I?I The truth in this" setting aside the larger contention about privacy" is in the di erence between the phone and the &et-s intelligent terminals. I the &et saves us rom unwanted intrusions" it is because it easily saves us rom the other person altogether. 3a'in) contact becomes a matter o so tware <that can sort through the communications.< .hat ,ilder calls our <control< over these communications is 77 as in all e orts to control others 77 a matter o shielding ourselves rom people.
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'n the &et" the kind o control ,ilder welcomes is unavoidable" lest we be drowned. .e have no choice. I said above that the &et doesn-t actually force our detachment. That wasn-t 5uite true" or in a way it does. The more we orm society around the &et" the greater the percentage o our daily business we cannot help transacting without making personal contact. How much o the personal is there in a credit7card transaction? .e don-t really have to do with the people we have to do with. They are largely e0traneous to the main transaction" and carry out a mechanical unction. 'r" rather" the main transaction has itsel become a mechanical unction. This" then" is what I am saying must be countered by a new" conscious" and inner striving. 2or my part" I hardly know how to begin. And yet" the movement to dissolve society and reconstitute it on the &et moves orward at a erocious pace. %y pessimism becomes most acute when" as in ,ilder-s case" the problem 77 let alone its e0tremity 77 is not even acknowledged. A fragmentation of community ? There seems to be a great di iculty in holding onto the truth 77 as obvious as it is 77 that ease and le0ibility o switching do not constitute ease and depth in making human contact. Certainly the connectivity makes communication <easier"< but it achieves this precisely by rendering contact more incidental" more shallow. I suspect that every ma3or technical advance in communication since the invention o writing has marked the path away rom community rather than toward it. I1AI Community is" in the irst instance" something to be salvaged rom in ormation technology" not urthered by it. There is surely a case to be made Fand many have made itG that the telephone" automobile" radio" and television have all contributed to social ragmentation" personal isolation" and alienation rom both sel and other. In any event" one o the &et-s attractions is avowedly its natural susceptibility to being shivered into innumerable" separate" relatively homogenous groups. The act that you can ind a orum or virtually any topic you might be interested in" however obscure" implies ragmentation as its reverse side. There may be advantages to this <principle o in inite cleaving"< but the cultivation o community is not one o them. To establish community in any deep sense is much more a matter o coming to terms with di erences than merely matching up similarities. 9ut it is not clear that the &et encourages our comin) to terms with each other in this sense at all. I that were the real possibility opened up by the &et" we would hardly be e0cited about it" since most o us already have vastly more opportunities to interact with the people on our block" in the o ice" at church" and in our volunteer associations than we could take advantage o in a hundred years. (0actly what is the new thing we-re celebrating? Po.ers of heart an# so ! Historically there have been any number o village societies in which the physical means o communication were evenly distributed in the orm o a common airspace. (ach person was physically enabled to communicate with all the others. I am aware o no evidence that this e5uality o access predisposed such villages any more to democratic orms o community than to other orms. The act is that the 5ualities o community 77 whatever its orm 77 are" in essence" sou$ &ua$ities. They can only be e0pressions o our own inner li e. The view that a technology can be <democrati6ing and leveling< testi ies to a radical alienation rom everything that constitutes both the inner li e and culture. It is highly disturbing to hear technology debated as i the orms we need or building community were somehow inherent in the technology itsel . .hen we take such a stance" we con irm that we have lost sight o our own creative responsibility or the substance o community. In that case" the technology truly wi$$ become the remaining substance o community 77 or we will have given up everything in the human being that cannot be embedded within the machine. All this" I hope" will make clear why I ind the ollowing statement so unsettling. It is a clause taken rom the opening line o a proposed <Charter o Communication Interdependence o the global nongovernmental movements or peace" human rights" and environmental preservation"< and it re ers to the creation o various electronic networks" such as the #eace&et. .H(& I& TH( C'!$S( '2 H!%A& (@(&TS it becomes possible to dissolve the communication rontiers that have divided peoples one rom another.... I11I .hat hope is there or peace and human rights when I conceive the barriers separating me rom my ellows to be mere obstructions on a network technology diagram rather than the powers o darkness shadowing my own heart? -eferences 1. &et announcement posted by Strangelove #ress FmstrangeN onorola.netG on &ovember 1>" 1??1. +. 2or purposes o discussion" I will take <community< in the broadest possible sense as <the meaning we ind through our li e together.<
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1. $heingold" 1??1B 111. 4. 2rom a contribution to the <irvc7l< list Firvc7lNbyrd.mu.wvnet.eduG" 1? 'ctober 1??1. 8. 2rom a contribution to the <irvc7l< list Firvc7lNbyrd.mu.wvnet.eduG" ? 'ctober 1??1. ;. Puotations in this section are rom ,ilder" 1??1a" and ,ilder" 1??1b. =. 2or discussion o this issue" see chapter >" <Things That $un by Themselves.< >. I discuss some related issues in #A$T TH$((. See" in particular" chapter 1>" <And the .ord 9ecame %echanical.< ?. ,ilder" 1??4B 4=. 1A. This has to do with the relation between accuracy o communication and ullness o meaning" discussed in chapter +1" <Can .e Transcend Computation?< Technical improvements" almost by de inition" acilitate accuracy rather than the e0pression o meaning. 11. 2rederick" 1??+. At the !ringe of !reedom It is strange that in a society ounded so centrally on the creative initiative and reedom o the individual" we should today ind this same individual so utterly helpless be ore the most urgent social problems. 'r so it seems. I you are troubled" or e0ample" by the drug problem in our cities" what can you actually do about it? The educational system" amily structure" mass media" organi6ed crime" international commerce" wel are system 77 all a ect" and in turn are a ected by" the culture o drugs and violence. It is not easy to see where you and I might step into the picture and make a discernible di erence. It is all too easy to see how we might throw our lives away. Similar perple0ities arise i you think about the amines regularly scything millions o people" or the massive human assaults upon mother earth" or the stranglehold with which the indi erent imperatives o technological development now direct the evolution o social orms. The problems have gone so systemic" the causes become so tortured and inaccessible" the interrelationships grown so intricate" that we cannot imagine how to i0 one thing without i0ing everything. That" o course" seems impossible" so paralysis sets in. I1I <.hat can I do to change things?< has become as much a prelude to resignation as a declaration o hope ul intent. .hich is to say that the orces at work seem ever more impersonal" more disconnected rom individual human activity" more autonomous. #erhaps Falthough I do not believe itG this is the inevitable result o increasing social comple0ity. In any case" you and I will most likely continue to take our places within a scheme o things whose larger outlines are already given" and amidst processes o change that seem elemental" inescapable" overwhelming. .hen a <new world order< is proclaimed" the new realities are not what we saw and planned or 77 not what we care ully ushered into place 77 but more like something that happened to us. .e can only react" and wait or the ne0t set o realities. 'ddly 77 or perhaps not so oddly 77 our sense o personal helplessness coincides with historically unsurpassed technical powers. 'ur apparent inability to mend things has a perverse lip sideB the things we can4t he$p doin) seem unavoidably to worsen matters. (very action sets in motion endless" outward7 lowing ripples" some o which are undeniably destructive. The smallest and most essential purchase" or e0ample" may well entail unhealthy conse5uences or the environment. I I have the means to live in a community where my children will receive a irst7class public education" I must ask what e ect this choice has upon other children in other districts. The politically naive hand that o ers ood to a starving Somali child may call down death and destruction on an entire village. (ven in paying ta0es or contributing to a charitable organi6ation" I take on my own share o responsibility or certain things I ind ine0cusable. The moral con licts so iendishly calculated in the modern dictatorial state 77 involving thousands o small complicities on the one hand" and" on the other" unbearable threats to sel and loved ones Fwhat would become o us i we strictly ollowed our consciences?G 77remain a constant" i more muted" eature even o democratic societies. <The System< 77 a negatively tinged and historically recent phrase 77 captures something o the impersonality and moral ambiguity I-m talking about. The System is something we try to beat" and ear becoming trapped in. @aguely allied with the devil" it is a power we nevertheless must employ 77 or at least outwit 77 i we are to succeed in doing good. There-s no avoiding the System. &ot even Henry )avid Thoreau at .alden #ond could pretend to an immaculate escape rom participation in" and responsibility or" the larger society. As a result o our <complicity"< either o two pathologies may be rein orcedB neurotic sel 7condemnation" or a dulled conscience. 9oth are ully enough in evidence. 9ut perhaps most pervasively" we ind a vague" persistent sense o collective guilt" without which the more absurd" guilt7driven e0pressions o political correctness could never have sur aced.
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6nstit tions ta%e for& .ithin the h &an 2eing Some i teen years ago Ale0ander 9os wrote a remarkable little booklet commenting on some o these matters. It-s called Nothin) To Do *ith 3e5 He describes" or e0ample" the history o insurance in (urope. <9e ore 1;AA it had almost e0clusively the character o mutual help. In small communities there was an unwritten right to receive help. I someone had had a ire" or e0ample" he could go round with an urgent letter" collecting money to restore his burned house. ' course people gave generously" knowing that in their own time o need they could count on the other or a contribution< Fpp. ++7+1G. 'ver time" however" the desire or individual reedom militated against this sort o mutual dependence" leading to the payment o premium and interest. <9" having obtained credit rom A" pays interest" to buy o any obligation to help A when he needs it.< 9anks and insurance companies eventually came to insulate the one who needs rom the one who helps" so that the entire system was depersonali6ed. 'ne +ou)ht security. 'r tried to 77 or 9os points out that the resulting independence was illusory. How many o us eel any pro ound security be ore the aceless bureaucracies that hold our wel are in their hands? Puite apart rom the threat o in lation and the un oreseen revelations in the small print at the back o the insurance contract" I am still helpless <i " by the time I am pensioned o " there isn-t anybody who is willing to do anything or me< Fpp. +17+4G. In the humblest termsB who will open the 3ar o ood that an arthritic hand cannot manage? And the nursing home" with all its terrors or the elderly" stands as an apt image or the inal stages o an institutionally nurtured helplessness. This is not to say that the old system always worked" or that the new does not o er dramatic changes we have come to identi y with progress. 9os is merely trying to make clear that there is a connection between what human beings choose to become in their own hearts" and the social structures that grow up around them. In this particular case" the issue is whether our historical abandonment o institutions based on personal trust has led to independence" or instead to a more thoroughgoing 77 i also a more di use and unaccountable 77 dependence upon a system over which one has almost no control at all. Hungry dragons The subtle threads linking the interior o the individual to prevailing social orms e0tend beyond economic matters. 9os mentions" or e0ample" our obsessed ascination with sensational news 77 se0 scandals" grisly murders" embe66lements" the spectacular down all o public igures. Here" too" he searches within the individual or the essential" enabling gestures leading to social problemsB Such news is ood or a particular kind o eeling and emotion. 9y the time this morning-s paper comes out" yesterday-s ood has long been used up. There is an emptiness le t behind" and the soul is hungry or a new in3ection. It is like the dragon in the airy tale" that must have a young maiden every year" otherwise it will break out and destroy the whole neighborhood .... Is it only actions that are realH and do eelings and thoughts actually have no e ect? I millions o hungry little dragons are all clamoring or a young maiden" isn-t there one who is really bound to be eaten up? .hen so many people are an0iously on the look7out or the ne0t murder 77 with <sincere< moral indignation 77 does the desire not create a potentially magnetic ield to attract 3ust such a deed? %ost o us will think we could resist an impulse o that sort" but the chain o humanity has weak links in it. There will be people who rom whatever cause ... are predisposed to such action .... There has to be copy or tomorrow-s edition. Fpp. 11714G .e know too much about mass hysteria and other aberrations o the collective psyche to dismiss these remarks out o hand. 'nly recall the Cos Angeles reeway shootings" which came in a bi6arre" well7 publici6ed wave. Having witnessed such a pronounced orm o the dragons- hunger" we cannot reasonably ignore the likelihood o more subtle and pervasive predations. All these inner choices have their social costs" incalculable though they beB in the legal and penal systems we have erected to protect our contractual relations with each other" in the medical and psychiatric conse5uences o mutual alienation" in the dissipation o human resources by the industries o mindless and sensational entertainment. Techno!ogy can #istract s fro& o rse!ves There may be" then" discernible connections between my individual behavior and the particular social orms and institutions that grow up around me. This is true even in the case o those strange outbreaks that seem" at irst" wholly oreign to my own li e. To recogni6e the uniting threads" however" re5uires me to look beyond the e0ternal and mechanical relationshipsH it re5uires me to look within mysel " and to learn a most delicate skillB how to identi y my own re lection in society and society-s re lection within me. !pon such a basis I can perhaps +e)in approaching social problems as meaning ul issues to work upon. &ot that it will ever be easy. There is no denying the almost personal <wish< o society to wrench itsel ree rom the human individual" and to tear along as a sel 7driven mechanism determining its own uture. .e see this in the corporation" we see it in all those academic disciplines raming a purely mechanistic view o the world" and we see it above all else in the largely sel 7determined and insanely accelerating evolution o technology. Crowning it all is the computer. .ith computers we construct our models o society. All good models <run by themselves.< 9ut i society runs by itsel " I do not need to worry about my contribution. It now almost seems to us as i all social orms are merely side e ects o technical developments. .hen a problem arises" our irst thought is" how can we bring technology to bear upon it? The urthest thing rom our minds may well beB what does this problem tell us about ourselves and about how we should change?

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&or is this surprising. 2or in a society built to <run by itsel < 77 a society in which the idea o individual choice brings to mind" irst o all" the <mechanisms o the market< 77 technology truly does o er the only immediate" apparent change. And so we draw its weave ever tighter. 'nce the terms o human e0change have been reduced to the <transactions< o a transaction processin) system Fas a common type o so tware is calledG will we know how to work on society other than by tinkering with the computational processes? And what" then" becomes o the human potential or inner development? Ask yoursel B in all the public discussion about the &et 77 in all the debates about carriers and contentH telephone" cable" and broadcast companiesH technical standards and con igurationsH universal access and privilegeH privacyH productivity and unemploymentH telecommuting and corporate redesign 77 how many people have discussed what you and I need to learn about dealing with the burden o technology that we carry inside us and pro3ect into our society? F2or surely every newly invented machine and technical process is irst imaged within its creators.G There is not much evidence that we are paying heed to the peculiar dragons o technology. I+I $et.een he!p!essness an# free#o& 2or reasons that should appear at the end" I have intended or this chapter to be rustrating 77 although I hope constructive$y rustrating. *ou may in any case be asking" <Are we ree to change things or not? And i the individual does still make a di erence" by what means?< I would answer yes to the irst 5uestion" even i it-s a rather complicated yesB 'ur society more and more runs along by itsel like a machine. This" however" does not mean we should abdicate our reedom" although nearly irresistible orces in society are asking that o us. $ather" it summons us to discover and e0ercise our reedom. The need is to recogni6e ourselves in our machines" and our machines in ourselves" and begin to raise ourselves above our machines. A society running on by itsel " out o control" points to processes in ourselves running on without conscious control.

I began by citing the parado0 o individual reedom in an era o individual helplessness. It is indeed a parado0" but not an insurmountable one. .e could not seek reedom i we did not e0perience constraints. To recogni6e constraint is to assert a ree capacityH a wholly un ree creature would know nothing o constraint" which can only be elt as a hindrance to some e0isting potential. &either the wholly un ree nor the wholly ree could e0perience what reedom means. I1I 2reedom" you might say" is not a state" but a tension" a name or the process o becoming ree. So the parado0 o apparent individual helplessness in an era o unprecedented social challenge is e0actly the sign we would e0pect i the promise o reedom now stands brightly be ore us. 'ur dilemma is not really a parado0 so much as it is an invitation. 'ur reedom remains nascent" sometimes perverted" o ten triviali6ed. 9ut the prevailing spirit o helplessness is both a challenge to what reedom we have and the pro ered means or its urther development. #recisely there" where our e0perience o un reedom is most pain ully acute" we are being prodded" invited" to enter into reedoms not yet discovered. This brings me to the cru0 o the chapter. )on-t ask me or a program" an action plan" a list o things you should do. That is e0actly what almost everyone else is trying to tell you" and what I cannot. To ask or a program is already perilously close to asking or a <machine< that will take care o the problem. It is already to be looking or a technical solution. I what I would do must be set out in a list 77 an algorithm 77 then I have yet to take hold o my reedom. And I will inally and ully have declined the invitation to reedom i the day comes when I can no longer even conceive my responsibility or society e0cept in technical terms. So the irst thing is more a knowing and a being than a doing. I the thin threads connecting my reedom to social problems are becoming ever more tortuous and obscure" the irst connection I must look or is precisely the one between mysel and the increasingly detached" sel 7willed character o society. 9ut I do not wish to avoid the 5uestion. There is something you and I can do. It is to recogni6e that the logic o the problem <out there< is also a logic <in here.< The ailure to see in this recognition a real doing 77 a necessary li etime o doing 77 is itsel the problem. The doin) re&uired of us is a refusa$ to continue seein) a$$ pro+$ems as the resu$t of a doin) rather than a +ein)! as technica$ rather than spiritua$. 9lindness at this point is e0actly what allows the problems to detach themselves rom us and run on according to their own logic. They run on because we do not con ront them within ourselves. .here" on the other hand" we recogni6e ourselves in the world and then take responsibility or ourselves 77 well" I cannot say what additional doing will result F or the doing will be in reedomG" but it will be a real doing" issuing rom deep within" and there ore the only doing that counts. #hings #hat Run by #hemselves The peer7to7peer connectivity we celebrate on the &et is not a recent invention. .ithin groups o restricted si6e 77 small companies" intentional communities" old7 ashioned neighborhoods 77 it is common to ind individual communicating reely with individual across the entire group.

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As communities grow larger" however" the signi icance o peer7to7peer connectivity becomes uncertain. .e cannot simply e0trapolate rom the small group. A ter all" the telephone gives us near7per ect connectivity across the entire country. 9ut i we were all to begin calling each other" chaos would ensue. That is why structure is inevitably imposedB conventions and eti5uette" social boundaries" personal interests" connection costs" privacy laws" time constraints 77 innumerable actors lead to patterns o network use that look 5uite di erent rom any naive ideal o peer7to7peer connectivity. Try reaching the C(' o your telephone company. F'r 3ust try penetrating the computeri6ed" automated answering system to reach a customer7 service agent.G The need" then" is to develop some sense or the social structures likely to take shape around large7scale networking technologies. A good place to start is with the corporation. Corporations are dynamic entities" o ten multiplying many times in scale over several years. Here we can watch the e orts o integral" highly networked communities to continue unctioning integrally as they e0pand. .e can observe their unaccountable trans ormations. And when we do" we begin to see the e0traordinarily di icult human challenges posed by e0panding networks o interaction. It has been an oddity o the Internet-s early phases that it evoked such a rush o un5uali ied optimism about the inevitable bene its o raw <connectivity.< The &et was going to ree the individual rom the System. That optimism has already darkened a bit" i the &et discussions going on as I write are any guide. 9ut the corporate e0perience suggests more than a ew peripheral shadows around the earlier hopes. As we consider the evolution o networking technologies" we also need to consider the evolution o totalitarianism. 9y means o networks" the System has a remarkable ability to take hold o us in an ever more absolute 77 and ever more invisible 77 manner. 5ro& start- p to 2ehe&oth 'ne o the dramatic eatures o the past two or three decades has been the prominent role o the start7up venture" particularly in what we call <high7tech< industries. ' course" every company has to have started at some time. 9ut this recent period has seen an unprecedented surge o new ventures" many o which have contributed to the technological re7shaping o society we are now witnessing. And the phenomenon has been pronounced enough to yield 77 in high7tech at least 77 a distinctive <start7up culture.< %any engineers have learned to thrive on the peculiar rush they derive rom these intensive e orts" abandoning their company as soon as it becomes an established success and moving on to a new initiative. 'thers" o course" have learned the meaning o burnout. $emarkable energies are poured into the high7tech start7up Fcrystalli6ing 77 once the company grows old and tired 77 into the inevitable tales about the wondrous accomplishments o the Heroic (raG. The ounding employees identify with the new business. The company is something they helped orm" an instrument or carrying out their purposes" or reali6ing their particular vision o the uture. The company is simply ... them. This e0plains why they are willing to invest such e0traordinary time and energy in the undertaking. Their own interests and goals ind e0pression through the company. There is something o the organic principle in these organi6ations. The organs o the human body do not primarily relate to each other mechanically and e0ternally" but rather bear within themselves the imprint and the unctioning o the whole" while at the same time the whole embodies the health and ul illment o each organ. So" too" the individual employee in the well7honed start7up internali6es the principles and aims o the entire <organism"< reely bringing them to bear upon her own tasks without outside coercion. 9ut at the same time" the organi6ation as a whole is an integrated e0pression o the will o its employees. The result is an uncommon le0ibility and a knack or intelligent improvisation. In a strong start7up you o ten ind every employee prepared to leap into whatever breach opens up" without regard or 3ob description" status" or e0plicit marching orders. %otivation is high" and the creative 3uices low. Since everyone knows everyone and has at least some amiliarity with all aspects o the operation" the whole organi6ation luently and intelligently adapts itsel to the changing shape o its competitive world. *ittle fish become big fish &o wonder such organi6ations o ten outper orm rather dramatically their huge" established brethren. 9ut then they 3oin the brethren. It seems as inevitable as the law o gravity. 'ne subtle reversal in particular marks the crucial" i long and drawn7out" transition rom vigorous young start7up to well7 ed" bureaucratic behemoth. .here initially <we had a vision< 77 and the company was the instrument or reali6ing it 77 now the company-s separate e0istence is the given" and management begins asking itsel how it can mobili6e employees on behal o the company. The very orm o the 5uestion betrays the underlying problemB employees have become instruments or reali6ing the now wholly independent" sel 73usti ied goals o the company. A second symptom accompanies the irst. The aim o the entire e ort is no longer a good or service" the achievement o which re5uires" among other things" economic disciplineH rather" the economic <bottom line< itsel becomes the controlling ocus o the company. 9ut this is to turn things upside down and inside out. It leads to episodes like the one :ames '-Toole reportsB I once asked a #epsiCo vice president i anyone in that corporation had ever raised the issue o the morality o promoting 3unk ood in ghetto areas where kids weren-t getting enough basic oods. He answered" <I anyone would ever be so oolish as to raise the 5uestion" he-d ind himsel out on the street.< I1I &eedless to say" employees sense this reversal o ends and means" this loss o human purpose" and come to see the company as competing against their own goals and interests. To ask" why am % doin) this wor'5 77 what human vision o the uture are we as a
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company striving to reali6e? 77 is herea ter to sound a rather uncom ortable" dissonant note within the organi6ation. It is easier to say" <I 3ust work here"< and to seek one-s deeper satis actions elsewhere. I should mention in passing that the transition we-re talking about seems inevitable" given the structure o the corporation 77 particularly the ownership structure. :ust considerB when it dawns upon the employee that he and his ellows and their entire purpose ul undertaking can be sold o to the highest bidder without any input rom all those who made the beauti ully e icient start7 up venture purr 77 well" that-s when everyone begins re erring to the vaguely de ined corporate string7pullers as <they.< .hich is certainly no surprise. Can any meaning ul human endeavor today remain meaning ul when the <bottom line< is that the participants must operate as chattels? I+I The co&p ter)s ne.-vent re virt es It is not my purpose here" however" to analy6e corporate structure. .hat I want to point out immediately is that the virtues o the high7 tech start7up company closely resemble the advantages o ered by computer networks. The reedom o peer7to7peer relating throughout a networkH the immediate access to in ormation rom all network nodesH the way in which a single node" organlike" can present itsel and its in luence to the entire <virtual organism"< while in turn being guided by the state o the whole networkH the potential in ormality and blurring o unctional divisionsH the distribution o intelligence and responsibility throughout a network 77 all this suggests that the computer network is a technological re lection o the healthy" e ective start7up venture. And so I believe it is. 9ut now another issue stares us in the aceB this strange di iculty in carrying the strengths o the start7up into the maturing organi6ation. )espite the blood oaths o those early heroes 77 owners" managers" and employees alike 77 <not to let it happen here" because we-re di erent"< the sti ening o the organi6ation and the alienation o its personnel always seem to happen. And whatever the a orementioned role o the underlying corporate structure in this inevitability" much else is at work. The company gains a li e o its own. It is e0perienced 77 by owners as well as employees 77 as the resistance that must be overcome in order to achieve human purposes" rather than as the natural instrument or those purposes. This is e0traordinary" given the strength o the original desire by all parties to avoid precisely such an outcome. .hat <independent< orces are at work here" sabotaging the wishes o everyone involved? 9ut be ore attempting an answer" we need to look more closely or a moment at the structure o the behemoth 77 the organi6ation going through what 9ernard Cievegoed calls the second phase" or phase of differentiation. I1I .here the pioneer Fstart7upG phase ac5uires a certain organic character" the di erentiated phase Fcorresponding to traditional <big business<G shi ts toward mechanism. (very task is analy6ed into its subparts" and these parts are placed in well7de ined e0ternal relationships to each other" so that the workplace becomes the rationally organi6ed sum o its aggregate parts. A le0ible structure based on personal relationships yields to a strict hierarchy o delegation and control. Cievegoed lists a number o traits o such organi6ations Fsome o which were more prominent in large corporations at mid7century than they are todayGB %echani6ationB people are replaced with machines wherever possible. Standardi6ationB every thing and every process is reduced to a precise" uni orm standard. Speciali6ation governs both the departmental and managerial unctions. The organi6ation <gives the impression that it can be contained in a deterministic or stochastic model in which the human being is reduced to a predictable actor which reacts to economic stimuli.< The coordination re5uired throughout the rami ying organi6ation is achieved by < ormali6ing relationships and interconnections. The in ormal and personal pioneer style" which continues or some time in the second phase" or instance in the style o management" ensures that the negative sides o the ormali6ing process do not become apparent immediately. %n a certain sense the informa$ or)ani1ation ma'es it possi+$e for the forma$ or)ani1ation to e6ist < Fp. =+G. .hereas the ocus o management in the pioneer phase was on the market" it now turns inward. <Administering and controlling the internal structure o the company becomes the most important task o management< Fp. ;?G.

*ou may already have said to yoursel what I-m now going to point outB i you wanted to <per ect< precisely this sort o organi6ation" pushing it as ar as it could possibly be pushed" you would want a network o computers. The corporate network o ers unprecedented powers o monitoring and control" e05uisite standardi6ation en orceable through so tware" e0tensive replacement o human unctions by machine" and an e ortless way to concreti6e the organi6ational chart 77 by simply engraving it upon the computer network. The computer" it seems" has a split personality. It is no accident that we see a lood o books either celebrating the computer-s power to usher in a new era o democracy" teamwork" and creative erment" or else bemoaning its rein orcement o centrali6ed" hierarchical power. 9ut in reality the computer has no personality at all. It all too readily accepts our personality. 1 ne. tota!itarianis&A #ersonally" however" I am not persuaded by those who greatly ear the computer7rein orced" hierarchical organi6ation. That style o organi6ation is on its way out 77 not because o the computer" but because or the past ew hundred years .estern society and the evolving shape o individual consciousness have made the principle o centrali6ed control steadily less tenable. The movement toward
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political democracy and" in business" toward employee participation" antedate the computer revolution. It is not that a network makes us participatory" but that our will to participate takes hold o the network. This e0plains a certain con usion. %any observers 77 especially those who actually use the &et 77 are convinced that <cyberspace< is an intrinsically egalitarian" democrati6ing" community7intensi ying medium. 9ut this is to pro3ect the historical truth 3ust stated onto the technology" while at the same time betraying a poverty o imagination. 2eeling in their bones the untenability o old tyrannies 77 and e0ulting in the prospects or their demise 77 these observers simply cannot picture to themselves the uture triumphs o a metamorphosed spirit o oppression. Sauron" they seem to think" knows only one orm. I you really want to see the multiple aces o the computer-s split personality 77 or" as I have been arguing" its split potentiality 77 then you need to look toward the peculiar opportunities and temptations o the uture. It is conceivable that we are witnessing the twilight o the amiliar dictatorial state. 9ut i that is so" then the proper 5uestion 77 the only historically 3usti ied 5uestion 77 isB <.hat new orms will the totalitarian spirit be likely to assume in our day?< And I will argue that the answer to this 5uestion serves 3ust as well or a second 5uestionB <.hat hitherto uncontrolled orces smother the promise o the start7up venture once it reaches a certain si6e and maturity?< The problem we-re up against in both cases is hard to put a dramatic name to. In act" this very di iculty partly de ines the problem. 9ut I will attempt to name it anyway. .e-re talking about the danger o thin)s that run +y themse$ves2 The dangerous ace o oppression today is the aceless one" the nameless one" the one or which none o us seems to be responsible. So we pay it no attention 77 which is e0actly what lets it go its own way. .ho can any longer be said to run the !.S. government or any o its departments? 'r the large corporation? In the words o a director and president o Shell 'il when asked how it elt at the top o his company" <It-s like sitting on the back o a huge brontosaurus and watching where he-s going. I4I :okes about oil and old dinosaurs aside" one senses this same incomprehension and helplessness throughout all our institutions today. The politician-s ritual promise to take charge and move the System is taken by the rest o us with resigned good humor. .hat has become o the great political and business leaders o the past ew centuries who" by orce o their Fsometimes despoticG personalities" placed their own imprint upon government and business? 2irst they became organi6ation men" and then they became the passive tools o their own media images. (o! now! even the stron)$y hierarchica$ or)ani1ation runs +y itse$f. .hich is to say that" e ectively" the hierarchy isn-t unctioning as a hierarchy. It-s not really directed rom the summit. Something else is going on. That-s why the only way you can reach the top o the pyramid is by becoming aceless. The hierarchy runs under a power that can never 5uite be pinned down. .ho really knows who <they< are? To hear everyone talk" <they< are everywhere" and yet no one you actually speak with seems to be one o <them.< A more otent somnambulism ? The answer is not to look or strong leaders o the old style. It-s no use going backward. The task ahead is to learn how we" as a community o human beings" can take responsible hold o our organi6ations" making them an e0pression o our li e together. This must involve neither the e0tinguishing o the many by the tyrannical dominance o the ew 77 a by no means dismissable threat 77 nor the disappearance o the community into an organi6ation that runs by itsel . I8I It is this latter threat that most o us ail to recogni6e clearly enough. There must be" as I said" a reason or the hereto ore inescapable conclusion o the new venture-s e0citing start. .hatever that reason is" it is power ul enough to de eat the most concerted will o the most intelligent and well7meaning people 77 and to do so time and again" despite all the hard7earned lessons o the past. It is 3ust a act todayB the organi6ation takes on a li e o its ownH it begins to run by itsel . 2urthermore" here is where the computer menaces us with a chilling potential. 2or while the mechanical devices o the Industrial Age also ran by themselves 77 endowing us with antasies o a clockwork universe 77 the computer runs by itsel with an attitude. It not only runs like a traditional machine" but also receives a dimmed7down" mechanical 77 yet technica$$y e ective 77 shadow o our inner li e" and then sets that to running by itsel . I;I And so the power o the computer7based organi6ation to sustain itsel in a semisomnambulistic manner" ree o conscious" present human control 77 while yet maintaining a certain internal" logical coherence 77 is increased to a degree we have scarcely begun to athom. .e are rapidly ashioning a di use <body< that ar e0ceeds the traditional corporate dinosaur in its ability to incarnate an autonomous and anti7human spirit. The human community has yet to make itsel master even o the moderate7si6ed corporation. 9ut already we are hailing the &et or its )$o+a$i1in) tendencies. The 5uestion is whether we are recasting an unsolved problem on a scale that leaves us altogether without hope.

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3ngineering tea&.or% The success ul high7tech start7ups have le t traces in the mature organi6ation. Sometimes much more than traces" or you can occasionally ind whole corporate departments that unction very much like a start7up. This is true particularly o engineering departments. FI will return to this in a moment.G 9ut our aim cannot be to preserve the start7up. 'rgani6ations must be allowed to mature. The need is to raise the start7up 77 or the di erentiated organi6ation into which it has evolved 77 to a higher level. $elationships" unctions" and tasks that have become mechanical must now be made organic 77 but more consciously" and at a more comple0 evolutionary stage than in the start7up. I the start7up can be considered a collection o loosely cooperating cells" the inte)rated or)ani1ation Fas Cievegoed calls itG is more like a higher organism with ma3or subsystems F<organs<G. .here unctions o the pioneer phase overlapped and were not clearly delineated Fand then became rigid and isolated in the di erentiated companyG" they must now be carried out by comple0" interpenetrating unctional centers. .here coordination was achieved by direct and in ormal personal contacts" it now re5uires sophisticated networking and hori6ontal cooperation. .here the organi6ational structure was lat" it must now be e0ceedingly intricate 77 yet ever7changing in orm" and le0ibly adapting to shi ting needs. .here individual e ort was decisive" now the company depends upon teamwork. In general" the pioneering" seat7o 7the7pants style" which gives way to detailed planning and organi6ation in the di erentiated phase" must now evolve into the clear ormulation o policy FprinciplesG and the management o innovation. A ter7the7 act evaluation o per ormance against policy replaces be ore7the7 act control. I=I Those who have worked" as I have" in the si6able and e ective engineering departments o computer manu acturers will ind this description amiliar. ,iven the competitive pressure upon them" so tware and hardware design teams must work this way" or they-ll soon be out o business. These teams have a lot to teach us" not only about how computers might be used in the integrated organi6ation" but more generally about the human shape o such organi6ations" with or without computers. 'ne hopes that the thriving start7up ventures o the past couple o decades" and the success ul engineering teams inside mature businesses" both signal the beginning o an e ort to take the company consciously in hand and mold it into an instrument or accomplishing the purposes o its human community. #he schi+o hrenic organi+ation !n ortunately 77 and despite these promising potentials 77 the signs so ar are not good. I have already pointed out the ailure o start7 up organi6ations to reali6e their visions o maturity. And what is most immediately noticeable about the engineering teams within established companies is the e0traordinarily narrow" technical nature o their tasks. This narrowness is the very evident prere5uisite or their success. The tasks have all the advantage o being precise" logical" humanly unproblematic. .hat would happen i the human resources unction 77 or the strategic marketing unction 77 or inance 77 were brought into a truly integrated organi6ation? 9ut it is nearly unthinkable. .hen the layo or the merger comes" can we have Human $esources operating on the basis o teamwork that arises rom" and penetrates back through" the entire company? Hardly so" or the layo and merger are only possible in the irst place Fin their common ormsG because the company as a human commmunity has already been discounted. Take" or e0ample" the <humanly unproblematic< nature o the hardware and so tware engineering task. That is e0actly the problemB the human being has largely been removed rom both the engineering cycle and the inished product. The product is conceived as something that stands complete and ob3ective by itsel " 5uite independently o the human e0pression going into it. The terms o that e0pression are there ore narrowed down to the strictly technical. A complementary consideration applies to those who purchase and use the computer7based product. This product has now become a kind o intelligent" empty template with the active power" in running by itsel " to shape a human community to its emptiness 77 that same e0pressionless emptiness governing its manu acture. Such" then" are the results when the engineer coding away at her terminal considers her task a technical one only" and when there are no means within her own work li e or integrating broader issues o purpose and value. I discuss elsewhere what can happen when decision support so tware is misused within the corporation. I>I 9ut it will almost inevitably be misused so long as it is being designed by engineers who see it as consisting o so much <logic"< and who themselves are unctioning within their companies solely as technicians. All attempts to mend this situation will amount to the most scanty patchwork until 77 well" or one thing" until Human $esources can interact meaning ully with (ngineering in a single" integrated organi6ation. And until the task o writing so tware becomes at $east as humanly problematic as managing the Human $esources department.

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Loo%ing rea!istica!!y ahea# It is simply atuous to believe that computers and the &et are one7 sidedly biased toward the encouragement o a richly communal business organi6ation. &o doubt they wou$d be biased that way i we ourselves were. 9ut there are many signs that we are inclined rather to let things run by themselves" as the whole" broad" technical thrust o our society already does. I?I %oreover" within the corporation" computer networks readily trans orm interpenetrating" organic relationships into a web o outer" mechanical ones. Human interaction within these networks easily verges upon the e0change o data that a computer can manipulate. .hat $oo's like a resonant pattern o personal e0change is o ten less notable or the unlimited <connectivity< it embraces than or the way it painlessly and unnoticeably ilters a deep" personal dimension out o the corporation-s unctioning 77 e0actly the dimension that must be brought to uncommon clarity i we are to overcome the smothering powers o the inertial organi6ation and preserve its youth ul hopes. It is easy" when caught up in the e0citement o an inchoate" miraculously growing" ever7surprising" global electronic network" to revel in the <play< and une0pected reedoms it allows. 9ut this en3oyment o the untamed" e0perimental" and still largely unproductive &et tells us no more about its mature potentials than the small" reewheeling start7up venture tells us about the corporate behemoth. I the &et is to become as use ul in our ma3or undertakings as so many e0pect" then it wi$$ be mapped into our highly elaborated organi6ations. And only i we have made those organi6ations our own" learning to e0press ourselves through them" will we succeed also in e0pressing ourselves through the &et. 'n the other hand" i we persist in the cultivation o a purely technical stance toward our work and our technology" we will ind that" like the corporation" it takes on a li e o its own" which is at the same time our li e 77 but out o control and less than ully conscious. In an age o universally distributed" technically intelligent tools" this autonomous li e may e0ercise a totalitarian suppression o the human spirit that will be all the more power ul or its di useness and invisibility. .e might" in the end" ind ourselves wishing or the <good old days< o strong" dictatorial rule. At least then we knew where the enemy was. Stirrings of ho e $ather than end on such a pessimistic note" I would like to suggest where we might look or a more hope ul uture. #robably not in any o those giant" sel 7propelled 77 and mostly high7tech 77 industries commonly thought to be carrying us into the uture. I would look irst o all in small" out7o 7the7way places 77 businesses where the aim is not growth" but rather to provide products or services that a particular clientele seeks as a matter o belie or principle. There are" or e0ample" those who value healthy ood" ree o poisons" grown within a healthy human community" and distributed and sold through healthy enterprises 77 all linked together by a consciously shared and worked out set o intentions. The costs will be greater" some may say" but that is oolishness" or you can only measure your costs against what it is you want to create and obtain. The 5uestion is" <what do we ind important?< and the businesses I have in mind will be driven by this 5uestion. There are such businesses now" some o them thriving 77 and not only in ood production. There are many small publishers who will accept a manuscript" not simply because the book will sell" but because they believe the book is important or mankind-s uture. There are personal care and health product companies whose businesses are guided" not by glamorous images and celebrity endorsements" but Fradical as it may seemG by deep convictions about what is hea$thy. There are environmental services that are an e0pression o love or the natural world. I have heard it said o a group o telecommunications e0ecutives meeting to discuss the <national in ormation in rastructure< that these fo$'s are in +usiness7 they4re not in it for their hea$th 77 a strange truth when you think about it. There is hope or a business only when its o icers and employees are in it or their health. Success and growth or such a business can be measured solely by the achievement of its purposes" not its 5uarterly stock price gain. 'ne hope or the uture is that we may learn to see more o our lives governed in this way by our own" meaning ul purposes. The esthetic and unctional design o home and workplace Farchitectural and building tradesGH the balance between man and machine in our activities Fvirtually every occupationGH the varieties o recreation that can truly revitali6e us 77 these and many other domains may become ields or the conscious attempt by businesses to achieve what matters. I would also look toward the nonpro its 77 what #eter )rucker calls the third" or social" sector. In many o these a social purpose is the whole raison d4etre" and the idea o stewardship is there ore success ully substituted or the idea o plundering the market. This largeness o purpose provides ertile ground or growing an organi6ation that is ully an e0pression o " and controlled by" its wide7 awake human constituencies. I would look or the e0pansion o <socially aware< banking and investing. The hope here is not that more politically correct businesses will be supported" but rather that any business will be supported only by those who are speci ically concerned about its overall goals" its use o resources" its internal organi6ation and treatment o employees" its e ect upon the environment" its role in its immediate neighborhood" and every other aspect o its operation.

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This hope applies not only to our investing" but also to our consuming. In a growing number o markets people are buying products with a <social conscience< 77 rom ice cream to cosmetics to toys. That the real social value o some o these choices remains controversial does not matter" or unanimity o opinion is not the goal. .hat is important is the ree e0pression o conscience. Indeed" where the social issues are comple0 and not ully understood Fand one can hardly imagine social issues to be otherwiseG" the proposed solutions had +etter be controversial. 9ut this concerned and ree e0pression is a prere5uisite or the emergence o any true solutions. .e can" there ore" welcome the e orts to certi y and label products" so that the consumer has some basis or his choices. 2or e0ample" an e ort is underway to begin identi ying timber grown by sustainable methods. %any other products" rom tuna ish to computers" have been labeled with respect to various environmental concerns. Although we can e0pect such practices to be employed cynically and misleadingly by some 77 and there are no easy standards in any case 77 these beginnings at least point in the right direction. I would look or organi6ations able to take a play ul" <nonserious< attitude toward any new technological deviceB taking the time to get to know it" to <massage< it and be massaged by it" and inally determining whether and how they can shape it to their own will rather than yielding to its will. This" o course" is the truly serious stance" or it implies respect or the powers embedded in every tool. I would not look toward businesses that leap into a market opportunity 3ust because it-s there 77 letting themselves grow e0plosively as the opportunity allows" until the whole market suddenly collapses Fas tends to happen when you are dealing with arti icially created <needs<G or changes its character. Then the company is le t with thousands o orphaned employees" not to mention a huge inventory o wasted resources. Carge companies can aim to be nimble and adaptable 77 and this is surely good 77 but the irst rule o adaptability should beB adapt yoursel to a real human need" involve those whose need you are meeting in your own planning" and let your production be guided as much as possible by the e0pectations and long7term commitments o this entire community. All this" o course" re5uires that in my roles both as consumer and as employee" I be willing to participate in the ashioning o business. In this regard" the consumer movement o the past ew decades is a positive development" but it needs to enter into a more intimate" cooperative" and productive relationship with the producers o goods and services. 9usinesses seeking to produce enduring value or consumers can only succeed to the e0tent that consumers accept a responsibility to support them. 'ne can" incidentally" see at least a distant hint o such a collaborative relationship in the Q Consortium" which is responsible or some o today-s most important and most <open< networking and graphics so tware. A group o high7tech companies support the Consortium in its development o new productsH these products go through a phase o public review" and then" upon completion" they are placed in the public domain. The participating companies 77 and anyone else who wishes 77 use the public7domain so tware as the basis or their own" enhanced" commercial products. 'ne reason companies support the Consortium is that" by participating in the early phases o product development" they get a head start on developing their own" improved versions o the so tware 77 this in a market where a ew months can make the di erence between pro it and loss. #ersonally" I suspect the time will come 77 however remotely 77 when the idea o racing to market in order to beat a competitor by a ew months will seem terribly odd. I cannot readily imagine any human need that is served by such a race. In act" the race seems to indicate a process that is running on by itsel " without re erence to need. I the slightest slackness on my part means that someone else is going to beat me to market" then clearly there-s no reason or me to worry about the supposed need remaining unmetD So I must in act be worrying about something elseB keeping up with the treadmill. I I must bend my entire organi6ation 77 and huge inancial resources 77 toward being irst on the market by a ew months" then I-ve devoted my organi6ation to a margin o good that is so in initesimally thin as to be meaningless. I-ve also almost guaranteed a margin o bad somewhere down the road 77 in the orm o corporate <restructuring< when the product directions that once seemed so important lose their relevance or appeal. And in the meantime my employees will recogni6e" consciously or not" that they are participating in a mechanism o cancerous growth rom which meaning has largely been eliminated. %ost o the signs o hope I-ve listed above imply at least a partial detachment rom the pressures o an economic treadmill running under its own power. I have no doubt that these signs must seem like olly to many. And so they wou$d be olly in most <normal< business conte0ts. 9ut I never wanted to suggest that our uture lies in what is now normal business. As things come to run more and more by a logic o their own" any human alternative can only look more and more like illogic and olly. -eferences 1. '-Toole" 1?>8B 1A1. +. #eter )rucker-s contention in The Post/Capita$ist (ociety that employees own corporate America through their pension unds is 5uite irrelevant here. Such abstract ownership has no bearing on the critical issueB the concrete relations o responsibility between employees and the organi6ations in which they invest their creative and productive lives. 1. Cievegoed" The Deve$opin) Or)ani1ation. This book was irst published in 1?;? Fbe ore the onset o the computer-s trans ormation o workG. Throughout this chapter I draw upon Cievegoed-s analysis o organi6ational phases" in addition to my own" ten7year stint with computer manu acturers. 4. Puoted in 9os" 1?>1B pp. 14718.
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8. As to the computer-s reactionary use ulnessB :oseph .ei6enbaum" re erring to the conviction o some that computers came along <3ust in time< to rein orce institutions like banking" wel are" and credit reporting" claims that this misses the point. <These institutions ... may have needed to be trans ormed" perhaps in revolutionary ways. I believe the computer has not worked to revolutioni6e the world as we know it so much as to shore up e0isting" decaying systems.< F.ei6enbaum" 1?>;.G ;. The chapter <Incomprehensible #rograms< in .ei6enbaum-s Computer Power and Human Reason is an e ective" i right ul" characteri6ation o computer programs <that run by themselves.< .ei6enbaum also deals with the implications o such programs within an organi6ational conte0t. =. Increasingly in our day the challenge is to move directly rom the pioneer to the integrated organi6ation 77 or Fin the case o large start7upsG actually to +e)in with an integrated style. The di erentiated organi6ation holds steadily ewer attractions or us 77 a hope ul sign. >. See chapter 1A" <Thoughts on a ,roup Support System.< ?. :ac5ues (llul makes this point in great and persuasive depth in The Techno$o)ica$ B$uff. &o We Really Want a %lobal ,illage? $e erring to our wired planet as a <global village< makes about as much sense as calling multinational companies <global cra t shops<B it works ine so long as you attach meaning only to the irst word o the phrase. In the case o <global village"< however" nearly all the emotional reight is delivered by the second word. ,iven how ew o us can claim any direct e0perience o a traditional village culture" one wonders what it is we-re really saying. &o one can doubt that the world-s wiring re lects the imperatives o business. To a irst appro0imation" the global village is the global <cra t shop< 77 which only adds to the perple0ity" since the patterns o community we have built into our corporations are not widely elt to be villagelike. 'n the other hand" we have ed or some years now on certain images o electronic" transnational" people7to7people contact. A ew well7 publici6ed a0es and Internet messages rom Tienanmen S5uare and coup7threatened $ussia greatly encouraged our already eager sentiments. Somehow we can-t help ourselvesB all this opportunity to pass messages around 3ust must lead to an era o peace and neighborly understanding. At the very least" we cannot deny that the communication itsel is a good thingD There are strange 3u0tapositions here. %any o those societies in which the village has until now remained central 77 societies where networking is as easy as saying hello to a neighbor 77 are busily dissolving themselves in the cauldron o their own unrepressed ury" villager pitted mercilessly against villager. Surely this is not the community we wish to globali6eD .here then" one asks" is our model? #erhaps it is merely a ghastly sense or the ironic that prompts us to hail the birth o the global village 3ust as villages around the world are sel 7destructing. 9ut the unwelcome thought nagsB could it be that what we so eagerly embrace" unawares" are the powers o dissolution themselves? Legacy of the co!onia! vi!!age The current ethnic stri e orces at least one sel 7evident lesson upon usB there are ways to bring diverse peoples together 77 to give them common institutions" a common currency or cultural e0change" common purposes and undertakings on the world scene 77 while yet ailing utterly to bridge hellish chasms dividing human being rom human being. It is not 3ust that the Soviet e0periment and the coloni6ation o A rica ailed 77 as they did even in their most benign mani estations. %ore than that" they were gigantic incubators or uture misunderstanding and stri e. And no one can doubt that the transcultural nature o the e0periments 77 the tendency to globali6e and rationali6e human interaction without a proper oundation within the depths o the human being" without a true meeting o persons across the super icially breached cultural barriers 77 has contributed to the massive regional disasters that have a licted ormer colonies in recent decades. In this conte0t" the global village looks all too much like a convenient means or universali6ing the con licts already so evident in the <colonial village.< *ou may wish to dismiss ethnic hatreds as resulting rom the very sort o oppressive domination our global networks will herea ter make impossible. The political power o the a0 and all that. I don-t doubt that particular styles o domination may eventually pass rom history-s stage 77 or even that electronic communication may play a part in the passing. .hat concerns me is the likelihood o our e0pressing within a new social and technological landscape the same spiritual vacuity that gave rise to the old tyrannies. Can we claim to have composed the elusive melody that brings neighbor into harmony with neighbor? .hatever that melody may be" it was woe ully unsung in the villages o 9osnia" where the people had long been able to talk to each other unimpeded. The grounds are tenuous indeed or thinking that proper electronic links were the critical" missing elements in villages subse5uently shattered by the shrill dissonance o a hatred long inaudible even to its owners.

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%iving in marriage These observations may seem overwrought in the conte0t o the Internet. That" in act" is precisely what worries me. In dealing with the titillating prospects o a new electronic culture" we naturally ind ourselves talking about human beings who have become manageable abstractions o themselves. Sharing in ormation and cooperating in purely technical undertakings too easily igures" in the electronically adapted imagination" as <village paradise regained.< *et the global peace and understanding o this levitated discourse are only pale shadows o the peace7giving powers we must summon i we are to assist the trans ormation o an all7too7real village where the inhabitants rape" mutilate" and kill their neighbors. %oreover" the widespread substitution o an abstract" <in ormation7rich< discourse or a more muscular and humanly present interaction may be very much part o the ormula or mutual alienation" the conse5uences o which we are now seeing in the world. I am not saying it is impossible to e0press deep human concern to another person in an email message. There-s no need to tell me how you met your spouse over the &et" or how you participated in a success ul" electronic und drive or a charity. I know about these things and am glad or them. So" too" people were happily given in marriage throughout 9osnia" until a year or two ago. 9ut to leave matters there is to re use to probe the subtle weave o shaping orces rom which an une0pected uture may crystalli6e. A global electronic culture can" in one sense or another" bring about a union o peoples. The 5uestion is whether this union only o ers a less visible 77 and there ore more insidious 77 communal dissociation than was e ected by the ailed political unions o the past. $ecogni6ing such things is pain ully di icultH how many *ugoslavs in 1??A could have looked into their own hearts and the hearts o their neighbors and descried the con lagration to come? And it may be precisely this sort o recognition that an online culture suppresses more e ectively than any e0ternal authority possibly could. %any indeed 77 by their own testimony 77 have sei6ed upon the &et as an opportunity" not to ace what they are" but to live out their antasies. Techno!ogy transfer The global village is by all accounts a technological creation. %any would7be village architects are inspired by the endless potentials they discern in a satellite dish planted among thatched7roo houses. This techno7romantic image calls up visions o in ormation sharing and cooperation" grassroots power" and utopian social change. .hat it ignores is the monolithic and violently assimilative character o the resulting cultural bridges. :erry %ander and many others have given us a hair7raising account o the e ects o technological imperialism upon native peoples around the world. I1I A global village that leaves no place or native or alternative cultures seems uncom ortably like the old colonialism in a new guise. 9ut this statement re5uires some elaboration. Sources of satisfaction .e in the .est have distilled the abstract essence o logic and mathematics rom our ormer worlds o interest F or e0ample" rom the behavior o the night skyG. !n ortunately" we have proven less adept at recovering the possibilities o meaning in the original sub3ect matter once we have con ormed our thoughts to its abstract distillate. The light o mathematics may have descended into our minds rom the circling stars" but how many students o mathematics still look to the night sky with wonder? 'ur loss becomes an acute problem or others when we apply our now disembodied rationality Fo ten in the orm o computer programs such as e0pert systemsG to the concrete needs o developing nations. This rationality" detached as it is even rom our own ormer sources o meaning" is doubly alien to the people we would help. And what meaning we do invest in so tware and technology remains" or the most part" unconscious. )oris %. Schoenho " in The Barefoot -6pert" points out that e0pertise 77 the kind we e0port to other nations 77 is always <embedded in a community and can never be totally e0tracted rom or become a replacement or that community. I+I .hen we attempt the abstraction and apply the result across cultural boundaries" the logic and assumptions o our technology can prove bitterly corrosive. .orse" the kind o community rom which .estern technical systems commonly arise is" or the most part" noncommunity 77 typi ied by the purely technical" one7 dimensional" commercially motivated" and wholly rationali6ed environments o corporate research and development organi6ations. .ithin our own society" even ood is sub3ect to technological manipulation. .e can produce various arti icial oods" supposedly nourishing" and the inevitable temptation is to bring such products to bear upon the problems o hunger in the world. 9ut this meets surprising resistance. As :ac5ues (llul puts it" .e must not think that people who are the victims o amine will eat anything. .estern people might" since they no longer have any belie s or traditions or sense o the sacred. 9ut not others. .e have thus to destroy the whole social structure" or ood is one o the structures o society. I1I .hat has or us become a merely technical problem may well remain or other cultures an intricate ne0us o pro ound meanings. The wonder ul rationality o our solutions easily destroys the only things that really count. <It is discom orting"< writes )enis ,oulet"

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or a sophisticated technical e0pert rom a rich country to learn that men who live on the margin o subsistence and daily lirt with death and insecurity are sometimes capable o greater happiness" wisdom" and human communion than he is" notwithstanding his knowledge" wealth" and technical superiority. I4I This is not to 3usti y the continued e0istence o poverty" but only to point toward the inner world rom which alone meaning can arise. .hen technology arbitrarily destroys inner worlds" its logically compelling aspect begins to look like a grotes5ue" mechanical sneer. And given the aggressively sel 7driven" uncontrollable nature o .estern technology today" it almost certainly wi$$ destroy the inner world 77 which is to say" the culture 77 o the recipient societies. It will likely do so much more rapidly" even" than it has been uprooting the culture o the originating nations. #echnology in lace of culture Schoenho remarks that what we e0port today is no longer simply the various products o .estern e0pertise. <.estern e0pertise itsel has become the Je0portedK technology< 77 or e0ample" in the orm o e0pert systems. I8I 9ut this holds true or much more than e0pert systems. The entire technical in rastructure" including the computer networks upon which everything is increasingly ounded" en orces an imperial <wisdom< o its own. (llul speaks" or e0ample" about the centrali6ing character o even the most distributed networks. It is a centrali6ation without need o a centerB a governing logic" a systematic re5uirement or interaction" a necessary rationali6ation o all the parts within a huge" incomprehensible" but per ectly coherent and compelling totality. This rationali6ation is 3ust <in the nature o things.< The uncounted ragments o logic continually being added to the system through millions o separate processes that no one can ully comprehend or even know about 77 all these demand their own" mutual rationali6ation" and we ourselves are unavoidably pulled along by the grand pattern. I;I In this sense" even i in no other" the global village is a kind o global totalitarianism. And one thing it asks o us is clearB in attacking any local problem we must yield irst o all" not to the meanings inherent in the problem" but to the constraining necessity o the global system itsel . The village armers in &epal may not eel any need o a satellite dish" but they will receive one neverthelessH it is a prere5uisite or <development.< 9ut" as I have already pointed out" this willy7nilly imposition o technology destroys the abric o meaning by which communities are knit together. 'ur ba lement over con licts in the global village re lects a orget ulness o the act that human li e can be sustained only within a sea o meaning" not a network o in ormation. .hen we disrupt this meaning with our detached logic and unrooted in ormation" we cast the villagers into the same void that we have been able to endure only by illing it with endless diversions. &ot everyone has access to our diversions 77 and many o those who do are not so 5uickly willing to sell their souls or inane stimulations. $eligious anaticism 77 to pick one alternative 77 may prove more meaning ul. -hilistine technology 'ur rush to wire the world will some day be seen to have spawned a su ering as great as that caused by this century-s most ruthless dictators. There is no doubt about what we are up to. 'ur 5uest or a global village +e)ins with the implementation o physical networks and accompanying technology. Then" o course" the local communities must adapt to this global" culture7destroying machine they have suddenly come up against. This se5uence is vivid proo that the global village has absolutely nothing to do with culture" value" or meaning 77 nothing to do with the traditional signi icance o community" with democratic values" or with anything else that grows up rom the healthy depths o the human being. It is" purely and simply" the e0tension o a technical and commercial logic implicit in the wires already laid down. I we really wanted a global village" we would start with the local culture" learn to live in it" share in it" appreciate it" begin to recogni6e what is highest in it 77 what e0presses its noblest and most universal ideals 77 and encourage from within the cu$ture the development and ul illment o these ideals. 'nly in this way can any culture enlarge itsel . Technological change should be introduced only so ar as it serves the natural" consciously chosen evolution o a people. <.hat is important"< says Schoenho " <is that development" including technological and economic development" must proceed rom a vision o the human person and the purpose o li e and not simply rom a theory o production and consumption I=I 77 not even" I might add" rom a theory o the production and consumption o the empty commodity we now call <in ormation.< In a healthy society" technology would emerge rom the cultural matri0H it would not arbitrarily destroy that matri0. .e can hardly play a positive role in the development o other cultures without irst ennobling our own behavior to the point where we are no longer content to e0ploit those cultures or a strictly economic bene it. The real <meaning< o the world-s wiring is in act little more than the e0ploitation o commercial opportunities 77 the purest philistinism 77 in which nearly all o us are implicated. (nabling cultures around the globe to trans orm themselves rom within is hardly part o the picture. .hen cultures collapse instead o transcending themselves through their own best elements" only chaos can ensue. This is the whirlwind we have been reaping or some time. The current" urious attempts to assimilate every society to the inhuman imperatives o the in ormation age will only intensi y the maelstrom. The !ie

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It wasn-t long ago when we smiled to ourselves at the reports o $ussians and Chinese buying up blue 3eans and dancing to rock music. Somehow we knew that this meant we were winning. &o doubt our con idence was 3usti ied 77 and all the more as we penetrate our <enemies< by means o commercial television" cinema" and" inally" the ully integrated logic and the virtually real images o a brave new world. And yet" we are only now beginning to sense" with a restless oreboding" the slowly emergent e ects o these images upon our own culture. .hat i it turns out that <winning< is the worst possible outcome? The obvious lie should already have alerted us to the dangers. A culture that has largely succeeded in eradicating the last traces o its own village li e turns around and 77 by appealing to a yet urther e0tension o the eradicating technology 77 encourages itsel with (denic images o a global village. This is )oublespeak. The television" having helped to barricade the villager behind the walls o his own home" will not now convert the world into a village simply by enabling him to watch the bombs as they rain upon 9aghdad. &or will we suddenly be delivered rom ourselves by making the television interactive and investing it with computing power. FInteractivity allows" among other things" the hand to guide the bomb to its target.G In none o this do we see a healing o the terms o human e0change. &or do we see evidence o escape rom the ine0orable" despotic logic already responsible or the orti ication and isolation o our own inner7city <villages.< -eferences 1. %ander" 1??1. Also see chapter 8" <'n 9eing $esponsible or (arth.< +. Schoenho " 1??1B 118. 1. (llul" 1??AB 81. 4. Puoted in Schoenho " 1??1B >A. 8. Schoenho " 1??1B =8. ;. (llul" 1??AB 1;+7;1. =. Schoenho " 1??1B >+7>1. #houghts on a %rou Su ort System

)ecision support systems have come a long way since the Si0ties and Seventies. Time was when &obel #ri6e laureate Herbert Simon could announce with a straight aceB <There is every prospect that we will soon have the technological means" through Jheuristic programmingK techni5ues" to automate all management decisions.< I1I 2rom battle ield strategy to commercial product development" machines would increasingly take charge. .hile I suspect there is more truth to Simon-s prediction than most observers allow 77 a ter all" only a person whose own thinking processes were already largely <automated< could have ventured such a statement 77 history has contravened his e0pectation. &ow" some thirty years later" neither the battle ield commander nor the C(' is in oreseeable danger o obsolescence. .e still hear about decision support systems" o course" but they mostly attempt to o er a relatively humble suite o logistical services to the human decision maker. The bu66words litting about the research publications tend toward the more modest end o the spectrumB electronic meeting systems" groupware" computer7mediated deliberation" and so on. .hat these denote can range rom simple electronic e0tensions o the chalkboard and the paper memorandum to ambitious" i relatively crude" gestures in the direction o Simon-s original vision. $rainstor&ing, ana!y:ing, an# voting I will look brie ly at reports o one particular <group support system.< )eveloped by researchers at the !niversity o Ari6ona" I+I this system was designed to acilitate meetings. The meeting room contains a microcomputer or each o our to ten participants" and a large pro3ection system or displaying either an individual-s work or the combined results o group work. The typical meeting under this system has three phases. !sing -$ectronic Brainstormin) so tware and typing at their separate terminals" all members o the group record their ideas regarding the 5uestions posted on the meeting-s agenda. Although these contributions are anonymous" everyone can see the complete and growing list o ideas. &e0t" a vaguely described %ssue Ana$y1er helps the group <identi y and consolidate key ocus items resulting rom idea generation.< In ormation rom other sources can be imported during this phase. 2inally" a .otin) tool provides various methods or prioriti6ing the key items. Again" voting is anonymous" but the results are easily displayed or all to see. The Ari6ona researchers report on the e0perimental use o this system at I9%. In one case a manager" rustrated in her attempt to identi y certain problems in shop7 loor control through conventional meetings" employed the group support system with apparent
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success. <At the end o the brainstorming session" the manager re lected that or the irst time she was able to get meaning ul answers< to her 5uestions. Immediately ollowing this" the group prioriti6ed a list o < ocus items"< held some ace7to7 ace discussion" and voted. The result? A high degree o satis action among the participants" who elt they had success ully addressed the problems. This system can clearly provide low7level" logistical support. Ideas" once entered into the computers" are part o a meeting record that can be recalled at any time. Complete <minutes< o the session are available immediately upon its conclusion. @otes can be taken and recorded in an instant. &ot surprisingly" the %ssue Ana$y1er" designed to help structure the actual problem analysis" came in or criticism as <clumsy.< It appears that this was where the ace7to7 ace discussion proved most important. 'verall" the system produced large time savings <strongly correlated with the degree to which the group-s task was stated clearly and concisely.< 'ne participant cited <the preciseness o the process procedures< as an advantage. The researchers note in a later publication that <process structure helps ocus the group on key issues and discourages irrelevant digressions and unproductive behaviors. I1I #arado0ically" the anonymity o the process won praise or <knocking down barriers< between people 'ne user mentioned the <openness o the process and its lack o intimidation. This was because o the anonymity.< A second was impressed by <the way the personalities are taken out o the process so that the process becomes more rational.< And a third remarked how <the anonymity o the input allows participants to change positions on an issue without embarrassment.< In a related e0periment" a Hughes Aircra t manager o ered a similar observationB <I noticed that i someone critici6ed an idea o mine" I didn-t get emotional about it .... &o one knows whose idea it is" so why be insulted?< 1re there no ris%sA The general literature on group support systems yields a mi0ed and con using set o conclusions" leading the Ari6ona researchers to emphasi6e the importance o conte0t. 2or e0ample" the si6e o a group" the comple0ity o its task" and the prevailing corporate culture will all help determine the e ectiveness o electronically supported meetings. Also" electronic support does not always have to take the same orm. The system described here can be combined with any degree o <traditional< group interactionH it can be adapted to asynchronous use and distributed throughout several o icesH and presumably 77 although the researchers do not mention this 77 the anonymous eature could easily be turned on or o " according to a group-s wishes. The !niversity o Ari6ona developers claim a number o bene its or their electronic meeting system. In their own words" it enables all participants to work simultaneously Fhuman parallel processingGH provides an e5ual opportunity or participationH discourages behavior that can negatively impact meeting productivityH enables larger group meetings which can e ectively bring more in ormation" knowledge" and skills to bear on the taskH permits the group to choose rom a spectrum o structured or unstructured techni5ues and methods to per orm the taskH o ers access to e0ternal in ormationH and supports the development o an organi6ational memory rom meeting to meeting.

'n the other hand" they identi y no risks or liabilities" although in a general discussion o electronic meeting systems they mention in passing the potential or depersonali6ation by the electronic medium" together with the necessarily limited <view< o ered at any one time by a video display screen. Having listed these as theoretical concerns" they do not go anywhere with them. Another researcher describing this same work manages to come up with two potential disadvantagesB most people cannot type as ast as they speak" so the meeting is slowed down unless there are appro0imately eight or more participants Fin which case the advantages o parallelism more than compensate or slowness o typingGH and the system is useless or <one7to7many< orms o communication" such as lectures. I4I There is something disconcerting about this peculiarly limited range o assessment 77 a limitation" incidentally" that seems 5uite typical o e orts in this ield. The adaptation o the group task to a kind o computable algorithm seems 3ust a little too easy" and the world o possibilities outside the algorithm 3ust a little too neglected. This neglect is only more disturbing when set beside the authorsclaim that the technology <is undamentally changing the nature o group work.< It is not that it is wron) to assess one-s tools and methods against criteria such as the e0ternal low o in ormation" the precision o procedures Fas indicated by aith ulness to a step7by7 step" procedural outline o the way things ought to proceedG" and time7to7 solution. It is 3ust that i these considerations do not take place against a larger and more meaning ul backdrop" they easily begin to oppress" a act generally ignored within the engineering and research worlds giving birth to the new so tware tools. This is not to say that supporting so tware is inherently threatening. %uch depends on the awareness o the group using it. That is e0actly why the restricted vision o the researchers and their test sub3ects is disturbing 77 the cultivation o a wider awareness is e0actly what does not seem to be going on.
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The risks are not trivial. 2or one thing" the work group may begin to conceive and carry out its tasks mechanically" simply ollowing the prescribed ormat or its own sake. Such prescription can cramp any human relationship 77 particularly where creativity is desirable Fand where isn-t it?G. (ven to write things down at too early a stage 77 so that the things written con ront one as a kind o ob3ective" already achieved <reality< 77 can in some cases sti le any urther" reewheeling" imaginative thinking. %y own e0perience o meetings suggests that critical insights o ten crystalli6e une0pectedly at the end o a long and meandering 3ourney 77 and they may even nulli y everything that preceded them. And yet" the 3ourney was essential to the insight. Any e ort to make the later stages grow too systematically out o the earlier ones may discourage pro ound revisuali6ation o a problem in avor o a pedestrian <solution.< ,roup work does re5uire structure as well as reedom. 9ut when the structuring tools contain embedded intelligence" one needs to assess care ully 3ust how intrusive and coercive their in luence might be. 2or such intelligence is aggrandi6ingB it not only increases the range o capability and the adaptability o the tools" but or these very reasons it also invites users passively to abdicate some o their own responsibility or shaping group processes. The #eve!op&ent of h &an capita! The issues here pierce to the essence o the business undertaking. %s the corporation a human activity in the service of human needs! or not5 It is remarkable how easily and subtly the human7centered view slips rom our grasp. Indeed" 3ust so ar as the corporation is viewed as an enterprise designed to score a pro it" rather than to serve worthwhile ends under the discipline o economic controls" to that e0tent the entire organi6ation has already been cut loose rom its human 3usti ication and reduced to something like a computational machine. 9ut suppose we answer" <*es" the corporation is a human activity in the service o human needs.< .hat then? The irst thing we reali6e is that the individual and group activities within the company are more than a means to some e0ternal endH they are themselves a primary 3usti ication or the company-s e0istence. A ter all" prominent among human needs is the need to work" to create" to cooperate" to solve problems" to struggle against the solid resistance o the world. In this striving" the individual and the working community grow" and such growth is 77 or ought to be 77 a good part o the reason or binding these human e orts together in the irst place. In this conte0t" every problem is a gi t 77 part o the company-s inventory o <raw goods< 77 and invites the production o new" human <capital.< This is ar di erent rom seeing a problem merely as something to be gotten rid o by the most e icient means possible. All o which indicates that meetings we support electronically cannot be assessed solely in terms o productivity" time7to7solution" precision o procedures" and so on. A manager must balance many di erent concerns" in addition to getting the product out the door. Is each member o the group being stretched so as to gain new skills and e0ercise a more mature 3udgment? )oes the distribution o tasks reckon appropriately with the di erent ages and e0perience levels o group members? Is there a way to call upon this or that contributor-s intense personal interests? .hat do the rictions between :ane and :ohn suggest about their uture assignments? In what ways can the group internali6e and make practical the larger organi6ation-s commitment to meeting human needs? #he otentials of age Consider" or e0ample" the e ect o age upon a worker-s role. A twenty7 ive7year7old will typically approach li e ar di erently rom a i ty7year7old. *outh is ull o biological energies" invincibility" and an e0pansive" I7can7do7anything optimism. In later years" this re reshing" energetic" I7centered" immediate7task7oriented style shi ts toward the more re lective and communal. Here-s how 9ernard Cievegoed puts it in The Deve$opin) Or)ani1ationB <At 18 a man will ask in a certain situationB MHow can % solve this problem?- A man o 88" i he has weathered the crisis in the right way" will ask ... M.ho is the most suitable person to solve this problem?- or even MHow can I delegate this task so that the person concerned can learn something rom solving it?-< I8I As Cievegoed points out" some will not make this transition success ully" but instead grow more rigid with age" hewing to petty rule" de ending their own tur ever more 3ealously" and generally proving a headache to the larger organi6ation. In this case" management must ask" .hat mistakes have we made so that he has become like this? .hen he was between 4A and 8A did we not pro it rom the act that his department ran on oiled wheels? )id we leave him there because we could not be bothered to make a change? )id we overlook the symptom that no promising young men emerged rom his department ready to move on to higher levels?< Fp. 181G .hen a manager is prepared to ask such 5uestions" and then" with the 5uestions in mind" to acilitate the deeply organic interrelationships within a group 77 all in service o the values and purposes governing the larger organi6ation 77 will the group support so tware help her or hinder her? I don-t believe there is any direct answer. There is only a comple0 set o issues we haven-t really begun to address yet.

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.sing software as a foil 'r" againB in any group committed to human ends" the issue o anonymity mentioned earlier would present itsel as a problem and an opportunity. Here" in act" one can imagine a 3udicious and constructive employment o computers. I I were a manager with access to the system described above" I would use it to the hilt in tackling a speci ic issue. Then I would hold a ollow7up meeting in which the electronically supported session became a oil or assessing the group-s current state and per ormance. .hy did participation improve when anonymity was guaranteed? Am I 77 or is someone else 77 behaving in meetings so as to s5uelch the ree e0change o ideas? .hat are the various strategies o intimidation at work in our group? How can we unction more openly" without intimidation? 77 or surely a group cannot be at its most productive i its members do not have the maturity to deal orthrightly with each otherD And so the distortions and constraints o an electronic support system" used as a kind o oil" can help to answer the 5uestion" <.hat distinguishes a human7centered organi6ation rom a mechanism?< 9ut the prere5uisite or this is" un ortunately" 3ust what is missing in the current literatureB an ability to step back and look or the distinctly human potential in social institutions. &or is the ailure here surprising. .hat should the programmer look or" i not what is programmable? And yet" i we were not thinking in mechanical terms" we would train our engineers to think irst o everything about a task that cannot be programmed. 'nly when they had ully lived their way into the speci ically human 77 and there ore never ully capturable 77 dimensions o the task would they consider what supporting role their so tware might play. Approached in this spirit" so tware engineering would prove a discipline o continual revelation by clari ying the boundaries between man and machine. -eferences 1. Simon" 1?;8B 4=. +. &unamaker" @ogel" Heminger" et al." 1?>?. 1. &unamaker" )ennis" @alacich" et al." 1??1B 417;1. 4. Aiken" 1??1. 8. Cievegoed" 1?=1B 18+. In Summary 'ur ever more intimate embrace o technology 77 which now means especially computeri1ed technology 77 is hardly news. At the same time" anyone who claims to discern in this embrace a crisis or humanity risks becoming mere background noise in an era o rhetorical overkill. &evertheless" something $i'e such a claim is the main burden o this book. The 5ualities o our technological embrace are admittedly di icult to assess. It-s not 3ust that we cannot buy things without participating in inancial networks and contributing ourselves as <data< to consumer databasesH nor that companies are now re using to work with suppliers who lack <network7compatibility<H nor that in order to compete in most markets today" you must adapt your business to the computational landscapeH nor that <knowledge< increasingly means <computer7processed and computer7accessible in ormation<H nor that our children-s education is being shi ted online with a stunning sense o urgencyH nor" inally" that our chosen recreations are ever more in luenced by the computer-s remarkable ability to rame alternate realities. Clearly" these are important developments. 9ut on their sur ace they don-t tell us what sort o embrace we-re caught up in. #erhaps more revealing is the act that we can no longer envision the uture e0cept as an e0ercise in pro3ecting technological trends Fwith computers likely to be doing at least some o the pro3ectingG. Puestions about the uture o community" o social activism" o education" o liberty and democracy 77 even o religion 77 now threaten to become debates about the evolution o technology. The same truth emerges even when we e0press our ear o technology" or it is o ten the ear o what <they< will do with technology to rob us o privacy or access to in ormation 77 and <they< turn out to be conceived as impersonal mechanisms o government and corporate businessB machines running by themselves and largely beyond anyone-s control. &or can we imagine remedies without appealing to these same organi6ational mechanisms. 'ne way or another" we seem convinced" the %achine cradles our uture. This helps to e0plain the advice I-ve heard too o ten or com ortB <technology-s penetration o our lives will continue in any caseH why resist? .hy not ind the pleasure in it?< 77 the rapist-s plea" but now applied against ourselves on behal o our machines. All o which raises a 5uestion whether the di iculty in characteri6ing our embrace o technology results partly rom the act that technology is embracing us" the s5ualid terms o the encounter having largely been purged rom our traumati6ed consciousness. .hile I would answer a 5uali ied <yes< to this 5uestion" I do not take the answer to imply a re3ection o technology. $ather" it implies a need
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to understand both the logic o the technological assault" and the inner 5ualities o our submission. 2or the act is that we are locked within a comple0" mutua$ embrace. 'nly in accepting this act will we begin to discover the nature o the crisis now acing us. "ho -- or .hat -- ho!#s o r f t reA As I write these words" :ohn #erry 9arlow-s article <:ackboots on the In obahn< is circulating on the &et. 9arlow is co ounder and vice7 chairman o the in luential (lectronic 2rontier 2oundation" and his piece is a counterattack against government plans to standardi6e the encryption technology based on the <Clipper< chip. He sees in Clipper <a last ditch attempt by the !nited States" the last great power rom the old Industrial (ra" to establish imperial control over cyberspace.< His conclusion? I they win" the most liberating development in the history o humankind Jthat is" the &ational In ormation In rastructureK could become" instead" the surveillance system that will monitor our grandchildren-s morality. I1I This peculiar sentence bears within its brie span nearly all the unresolved tensions a licting the current assessment o high technology. I the &et is the most liberating development in the history o humankind 77 but evil orces may somehow snatch this incomparable gi t rom us at the last moment" turning it into an instrument o unsurpassed oppression 77 then" it seems" the &et can be neither liberating nor oppressive in its own right. It-s all a 5uestion o what we do with it. It-s not the &et we-re talking about hereH it-s you and me. And surely that-s the only place to begin. &either liberation nor oppression can become living powers in any soil e0cept that o the human heart. As soon as we put the matter this way" however" we can begin to talk about the <nature< o the &et. &ot some absolute" intrinsic nature" to be sure" but an established character 77 a kind o active will ulness 77 that ultimately derives rom our character. 'ur technological e0pressions" a ter all" do e0hibit certain tendencies" patterns" biases" and these can" to one degree or another" be read. 9ut it remains true that what we are reading 77 what we have e0pressed through the technology 77 can only be something o ourselves. .e should not ask" <Is technology neutral?< but rather" <Are we neutral in our use o technology?< And" o course" one hopes we are not. &o striving or what is good" true" and beauti ul 77 or or their opposites 77 can reasonably be called neutral. 'n the other hand" we see an apparent compulsion to treat our machines as ob3ective crystal balls in which we can discern the human uture. This is part o a broad willingness to anthropomorphi6e the machine 77 to trans er everything human" including responsibility or the uture" to our tools. It is easy to orget that such anthropomorphism is a two7way street. I we e0perience our machines as increasingly humanlike" then we are e0periencing ourselves as increasingly machinelike. The latter act is much more likely to be decisive or our uture than the ormer. Are we giving u our freedom ? .hat complicates the issue is that we are ree to hand over something o our humanity to our machines. .e can re use our own responsibility or the uture" and machines will readily ill the void. They will make our decisions on the battle ield or in the boardroomH they will imagine a deeply alsi ied subatomic world or usH and they will supply us with the words we write. I+I There ore one can talk about the <nature< o the &et in a still more troubling sense. 2or the proclivities to which we have given e0pression do" a ter all" take up a kind o independent li e in our technology. This has always been the case" but its truth is hugely ampli ied in computer7based technology. It is precisely the distinguishing eature o computers that they can act as independent agents. .hat we e0press in a programming language 77 and such languages already bias our e0pression" i we are not e0traordinarily alert 77 becomes the sel 7sustaining law o the now autonomous" mechanically intelligent agent. And yet" even here we should not lose sight o the act that this autonomous li e is" inally" our own. .e con ront its agency" not only in the computer" but in our organi6ations" in the unctioning o our economy" in politics 77 and also in ourselves 3ust so ar as we <run on automatic< and enter unconsciously" or with only a technical consciousness" into those domains where history is so loudly demanding we take hold o our destiny. .e con ront it wherever seemingly insoluble human problems arise through no one-s apparent ault 77 much as an individual-s conscious intentions can be subverted by split7o " independent ragments o the psyche F<comple0es<G or which he does not seem to be responsible. All this" I hope" suggests the need or sensitive balances in our thinking 77 5uite a di erent matter rom weighing piles o < acts< or <in ormation< in crude opposition to each other. In particular" we must hold the balance between two polesB (mphasi6ing human reedom" we can call the technology neutral" since we are ree to use it or good or ill. FIt remains to askB how are we using technology to shape ourselves and the world?G (mphasi6ing established human proclivities" we can deny the neutrality o the technology in which those proclivities have been embedded. FThere can be no positive outcome in this case" or i we are governed by our own e0isting tendencies" whatever they are" then we have renounced human reedom" and an inhuman uture awaits us.G

As an absolute conclusion" neither statement is tenable. 9ut as poles marking the movement o thought" they are both essential. I believe strongly in the decisive potentials o our nascent human reedom" and there ore my appeal is to the reader-s understanding and powers o choice. To that e0tent" I keep to the pole o reedom. 9ut my ears" and the urgency o my message" derive rom the second pole. 2or I am convinced that" parado0ical as it may seem" we are strongly tempted to use our reedom in order to deny reedom" pursuing instead the mechani6ation o li e and thought. Such a course is open to us. .e can orsake the responsibility o choice and
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put the machine in charge. .e can let ourselves be driven by all the collective" automatic" unconscious" deterministic processes we have set a oot in the world and in ourselves. 1 crisis of a.a%ening 'pening today-s electronic mail" I ind an announcement circulated to all members o the Consortium or School &etworking discussion group. FThe group is aimed primarily at teachers and administrators in grades E71+.G The announcement solicits contributions to a book" and begins in this admirably straight7shooting ashionB <The Te0as Center or (ducational Technology is committed to producing a publication that reports success ul uses o technology in education.< A little urther down 77 with no hesitations voiced in the meantime 77 the message continuesB The purpose o this book is to help other educators 3usti y to their school boards and school administrators the purchase o e0pensive computer7based technologies. .e want to hear rom you about positive changes in student achievement" student behavior" or teacherIadministrator productivity that are a result o the implementation o technology. .e also want to hear rom you about improvements in student test scores" attendance" tardiness" attitude toward sub3ect matter" andIor sel 7esteem that are attributable to the use o technology. These people seem to know what they want. Surely they will ind it. :ust as surely" one can reasonably complain about the imbalance o their enterprise. %ost teachers haven-t yet igured out what to do with the computers and the online access being shoved at them" and already this educational center is prepared to assume that only good can come o it all? 9ut asking or balance is admittedly a tricky matter. The obvious thing is to tally all the <good e ects< o computers in the classroom" and all the <bad"< and then to hope that the good outweigh the bad. 'ne encounters e0actly this approach" not only in education" but in all ields where computers are used. The skeptic is typically met with counterbalancing testimonials about how <my daughter had a wonder ul learning e0perience with such7and7such a computer program< 77 much as critics o television have become used to the ritual observation that <there are some good programs on T@.< And so there are. #here is no argumentative sum Such assessments can" in act" be worthwhile. The challenge or the critic is to avoid disparaging them while pointing gently toward a deeper set o issues. A ter several decades o a massive social e0periment with television" there are inally signs that we are taking more concerned notice o the medium-s underlying e ects" whether e0pressed through <good< programs or <bad<B what is happening to nervous systems" habits o attention" moral and esthetic 3udgments" the structure o the amily" thinking processes? I am not sure we will be given this many decades to become properly aware o our computers. 2or what is directly at risk now 77 what the computer asks us to abdicate 77 are our independent powers o awareness. *et these powers are the only means by which we can raise ourselves above the machine. The more intelligence" the more independent li e" the machine possesses" the more urgently I must strive with it in order to bend it to my own purposes. Here" then" is the undamental level at which I need to strike a human7centered balance between mysel and the machines around me. <9alance"< however" is too mild a termH I need to e0perience a crisis 77 a kind o turning point that prepares the way or healing. The word <crisis< was classically related to a decisive act o distin)uishin)" and the necessity today is that I learn to distinguish my own humanity rom the subhuman. I cannot do so without a ear ul" morally tinged struggle toward consciousness. This is a very di erent matter rom seeking balance in the usual sense. It will not do simply to cultivate as many socially bene icial e ects o computers as possible 77 whether we count elevated student test scores" or participation in electronic elections" or the analysis o scienti ic data" or cross7cultural communication as <socially bene icial.< 2or one can imagine a brave new world in which we have eliminated all but the desired e ects" yet in which we steadily descend to the level o our machines. The deeper 5uestion isB how do our desires already re lect our adaptation to our machines" and how can we rise above that adaptation? The very attempt to sum the advantages and disadvantages associated with computers is itsel a sign o how ar we have already succumbed to the computational paradigm. 2or there is no such sum. There is no absolute advantage" and no absolute disadvantage. -verythin) depends upon what happens within you and me 77 and we can change that. There ore" even to argue that there is a threat rom computers 77 i that threat is seen as i0ed and ob3ective 77 is only to urther our descent. This is my own greatest challenge" or where my strong predilection is to ar)ue the facts" I should instead seek to awa'en. Awakenings prepare the way or a new uture" and or di erent acts. I can put all this in a slightly di erent way. The e0perts in human7computer inter aces are working hard to design computer programs that <cooperate< more ully with humans and mesh harmoniously with our natural capacities. These undertakings are valuable. 9ut they are not enough" or they do not yet address what it is" with all our capacities" we have so ar become" or what we may yet become. .hat i the human being to whom we so beauti ully adapt the computer is the wrong sort o human being? .hat i our e orts really amount to a more e ective adaptation o the human being to the machine" rather than the other way around? A ter all" it is we who irst conceived those re ractory machines now being redesigned. (omethin) in us harmoni6ed with the original designs. That is" something in us was already inclined toward the mechanical. !nless we can work on that something 77 master it 77 our remedial e orts will lead to ever more subtle" ever more <success ul< e0pressions o the same tendency.
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That wor' is what I have been re erring to. 'nly a crisis within the individual can summon une0ercised" orgotten" or uture human capacities. <There is no birth o consciousness without pain< FC. ,. :ungG. I " in our technological e0periment" we are to know who is adapting to whom 77 who is embracing whom 77 we must irst gain a clear e0perience o both human and machine potentials" and how they di er. 9ut a great deal in our recent cultural history 77 and almost the entire thrust o the ongoing technological e ort 77 has consisted o the attempt to bridge or deny any such di erence. .e have learned to regard ourselves as ghosts in the machine" awaiting a proper" scienti ic e0orcism. It should hardly surprise us i this habit o thought has a ected our actual capacities. .e have more and more +ecome mere ghosts in the machine. (n being awake <Civili6ation advances in proportion to the number o operations its people can do without thinking about them.< I1I .hile echoing current notions o progress" this is nevertheless the momentous opposite o the truth. (verything depends today on how much we can penetrate our activities with a ully conscious" deeply elt intention" leaving as little as possible to the designs that have <escaped< us and taken up residence in the impersonal machinery o our e0istence. I am not decrying our ability to walk or drive cars without the crippling necessity o thinking about every detail o our behavior. 9ut it is important to gain a conscious grasp o the meanings inhering in such activities. This re5uires an ability to enter at will into them with imaginative thinking. .hat is the di erence between crawling on all ours and striding orward in an upright position? That we try to understand the relation between man and animal without having gained a conscious e0perience o this di erence testi ies to a science driven by purely e0ternal and reductionist approaches. It is a science that would e0plain consciousness without ever bothering to enter into it. Similarly" we need to grasp the di erence between driving a car and walking" or between viewing a two7dimensional" pespective image and participating in the world itsel " or between interacting with a computer and interacting with a person. 9ut these are e0actly the inner distinctions we have been training ourselves to ignore. It is no surprise" then" that many can now readily conceive o dealing with computers that are" or all practical purposes" indistinguishable rom persons. I am not claiming any easy or automatic distinction between computers and people. I what we have been training ourselves to ignore 77 and may there ore lose as capacity 77 is what distinguishes us rom machines" then we must e0pect that over time it will become more and more plausible to program our machines to be like us. This brings us back to the crisis o awakening. 'ur relation to computers is more a matter o choice" o the direction o movement" o inner e0perience and discovery" than o unalterable act. This is not to say" however" that the choices will remain open inde initely. Critical choices never do. The growing child" or e0ample" must develop certain human capacities" such as speech" when the time is <ripe"< or else risk remaining incapacitated or the rest o its li e. There can be no stasis at such timesH one either moves orward" or else loses much o what one already has. There is good reason to believe that all o human li e is governed by this principle. #ersonal crisis" then" is the only saving response to modern technology 77 a crisis o consciousness provoked by the oppressive resistance o mechani6ed intelligence" much as the child-s irst" altering steps are a crisis o <uprightness< in response to the downward pull o gravity. The child takes those steps in obedience to a wisdom calling rom <without"< a wisdom not yet grasped as conscious understandingH our task as adults today is to make the deepest human wisdom ully our own. .here" as a child" I di erentiated mysel rom the animal" now I must learn to di erentiate mysel rom the machine 77 and this di erentiation lies in the deepening o consciousness. It is there ore not only a matter o pointing to established human natureH it is also a matter o rea$i1in) human nature in its movement toward the uture. That I do not fee$ this task a real one" pressing upon me daily" may be the surest sign o my growing com ort with the rule o the machine" whose purely technical evolution" running com ortably along lines o least resistance" lets me sleep. -eferences 1. 9arlow" 1??4. +. See" respectively" chapter 1A" <Thoughts on a ,roup Support System<H chapter 11" <Impressing the Science out o Children<H and chapter 1;" <The Tyranny o the )etached .ord.< 1. I have not succeeded in tracing this 5uotation 77 attributed to Al red &orth .hitehead 77 to its origin. 'et/based *earning Communities (ntering a classroom" the si0th7grade girl sits down at her terminal and composes an email message to her <&et pal< in India. The two
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o them are comparing notes about e orts to save endangered species in their separate localities" as part o a class pro3ect. Their messages" discharged across the Internet" reach their destinations within minutes. (ach child-s e0citement about making contact is palpable. In later years" these children may even chance to meet" and their email e0changes will have prepared them to accept each other on e5ual terms" rather than to be put o by cultural barriers. An attractive picture? I once thought so. 9ut even assuming this sort o thing to be one o the bright promises o the &et" I doubt we will see its broad reali6ation any time soon. .hy? 9ecause the promise is being overwhelmed by sentimentality" uncritical uturism" and the worship o technology. .e-re seeing an unhealthy romantici6ation o the &et. The .or!# is #isappearing fro& the chi!# Allow me a brie lanking movement here. It-s now routine or social critics to bemoan the arti icial" antasy7laden" overstimulating Fyet passiveG environments in which our children grow up. I-m not sure the bemoaning helps any" but I believe the concerns are largely 3usti ied. The problem is that they too rarely strike through to the heart o the matter. 2or i the child must ill up his e0istence with <virtual< realities and arti icial stimulation" it is because we have systematically deprived him 77 not to mention ourselves 77 o the real world. Cink together in your mind a ew simple acts" many o them commonplacesB Schools have become ghettos or the young. #erhaps or the irst time in history" our century has seen children strictly cut o rom meaning ul connection to the world o adult work. That work is hidden away behind the walls o the industrial park" or else has disappeared into the remote" intangible" and opa5ue processes magically conducted through the screens o computers. Cikewise" all the once7local unctions o government have become distant" invisible abstractions" wholly disconnected rom what the child observes going on around him. The evening news concerns events he must ind hard to distinguish rom last night-s movie. The ubi5uitous television serves in addition to cut him o rom meaning ul interaction with his own amily. (ven the eternal inevitabilities have become invisibleH sickness and death are but the rumors o a saniti6ed mystery enacted behind closed doors in the hospital 77 grandmother will not utter her last groans and die untidily on the couch in the living room. And perhaps most importantly Fbut this receives little attentionG" the science he encounters at school is increasingly a science o abstractions 77 orces and vectors" atoms and e5uations. And so he is deprived also o his living connection to trees" rain" and stars. The world recedes behind a screen" a veil o unreality. I do not pine or the particular orms o a lost past. The 5uestion" rather" is how to replace what needs replacing" and with what. As things stand" the picture sketched above leads to a crushing conclusion" irst elaborated so ar as I know by the )utch psychologist :an Hendrik van den 9erg at midcentury. Can we rightly complain" van den 9erg asked" when the child grows up and somehow ails to <ad3ust<? Ad3ust to what? &othing is there 77 everything is abstract" distant" invisibleD And so the modern outcome seems inevitableB the child is orced to live within an inner antasyland" cut o rom the nurturing" reassuring matri0 o structures and authorities that once constituted community. &o wonder the surreal world o the video game is his natural habitat. &or will it do any good to trash the video games" i we ind no way to replace them with a real and appealing community. Ho. can .e %nit a co&& nity togetherA To turn such a child over to the &et or instruction is not an obvious good. Can we structure the bewildering" abstract" gamelike ma6e o possibilities into healthy learning e0periences" appropriate to the child-s age? 'r will he be more inclined to ind here only a yet more glorious video game landscape? The <inter ace< between the young girl and her &et pal is undeniably thin" one7dimensional" remote. As valuable as it may nevertheless be" it is not the missing key or redeeming the learning community. (ven as a tool or promoting global understanding" it scarcely counts beside the much more undamental 77 and deeply threatened 77 sources o social understanding. The girl" o course" will learn whatever she does o riendship rom peers who sweat" bleed" taunt" curse" tantali6e" steal" console" and so on. I I need to ind out whether she will become a good world citi6en" don-t show me a ile o her email correspondence. :ust let me observe her behavior on the playground or a ew minutes 77 assuming she spends her class breaks on the playground" and not at her terminal playing video games. !n ortunately" the assessment is not likely to turn out positive so long as the schoolyard is hermetically isolated rom any surrounding" multidimensioned community. And to see the &et as an easy remedy or this kind o isolation is" at best" simplistic. The danger o the &et" then" is the very opposite o the romantic pictureB it invites urther de7emphasis o the single" most important learning community" consisting o people who are ully present" in avor o a continuing retreat into communal abstractions 77 in particular" retreat into a community o others whose odor" unpleasant habits" physical and spiritual needs" and even challenging ideas" a student doesn-t have to reckon with in 5uite the same way her neighbor demands.

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An instructor in advanced computer technology or a %idwest high school wrote to me that <students who think it is cool to have a pen pal in %alaysia won-t talk to the black students who locker ne0t to them.< He went on" .here I teach we have the (SC J(nglish as a Second CanguageK program or the whole district" butting right up against the TA, JTalented and ,i ted studentsK program. I have run a telecom pro3ect or students in TA, classes or the last two years and I have yet to see any o the TA, students" who spent weeks <talking< with students in Euala Cumpur" say so much as a word to the Southeast Asian students in the (SC program. When are we together ? The most bothersome thing in all this is the tendency to leap rather too easily rom raw technology" or rom simple images o its use" to ar7reaching conclusions about e0traordinarily comple0 social issues. There is" a ter all" one absolutely unavoidable actB technologies or <bringing people together< do not necessarily +rin) peop$e to)ether. 9e ore the news media went gaga about the in ormation superhighway" there were asphalt superhighways. In many ways these did bring us closer together. The whole transportation revolution was no puny thing" even beside the computer revolution. It remade society. .e now brush up against each other in ways unimaginable in earlier eras. 2ew o us would want to give up all the new possibilities. 9ut" still" the uncom ortable 5uestion remainsB is that the spirit o <community< I eel as I peer over the edge o the superhighway at the dilapidated tenements below? And when I turn to the &et or my commuting" will I lose even the view rom the asphalt? Actually" the rhetorical 5uestion is unnecessary. I telecommute rom my suburban basement" and rarely have occasion to venture very ar out. I blame no one else 77 nor any technology 77 or thisH the choices are my own. 9ut one still needs to askB how will technology play into the kinds o choices society Fthat is" weG are already tending to make? Here is the sort o 5uestion we should be asking when we ga6e into the uture. Some technologies naturally tend to support our virtues" while others give play most easily to our vices. I am dumb ounded that so many ail to see how the spreading computer technologies 77 in education as in many other arenas 77 not only o er distinct hopes but also tempt us with seductive overtures at a most vulnerable moment. It would be much easier to welcome an e0ploration o the computer-s uncertain promise i one didn-t see so many eyes irmly shut against the already e0isting tendencies. The things that co nt #erhaps my single greatest ear about the growing interest in networked learning communities is that we will urther undermine the human teacher. The most critical element in the classroom is the immediate presence and vision o the teacher" his ability to inspire" his devotion to truth and reverence or beauty" his moral dignity 77 all o which the child observes and absorbs in a way impossible through electronic correspondence. Combine this with the e0citement o a discovery shared among peers in the presence o the actual phenomenon occasioning the discovery Fa caterpillar trans orming itsel into a butter ly" a lightning bolt in a 3arG" and you have the priceless matri0 o human growth and learning. The email e0change between the young girl and her Indian counterpart" added to such an environment" might be a ine thing. 9ut let-s keep our balance. Surely the problems in modern education stem much more rom the rarity o the a orementioned classroom milieu than rom lack o student access to such &et <resources< as overseas pen pals. %any people in our society are e0tremely upset 77 3usti iably so" in my opinion 77 with the current educational system. That gives some hope. 9ut a dramatic and ill7advised movement toward online education may well be the one smoke screen ully capable o preventing an aroused public-s ocus upon the issues that really count. *es" the student eventually will have to ac5uire &et skills" 3ust as she will have to learn about word processors and the organi6ation o re erence materials in the library. 9ut this is not a new model o learning. The most evident new model 77 not a very desirable one 77 lies still hal 7understood in the &et-s undoubted potential or dispersing energies" distracting attention" reducing education to entertainment" and 77 above all else 77 leading the television7adapted student ever urther rom human community toward a world o antasies and abstractions" a world too arti icially plastic and manipulable" a world desperately removed rom those concrete conte0ts where she might have orged a sturdy" enduring character. Cet-s give our teachers a realistic sense o the possibilities and the challenges o the &et" so they can soberly assess how it might urther this or that teaching goal. Cet-s not sub3ect them to a tidal wave o blind" coercive enthusiasm that adds up to the messageB <Connect as soon as possible" or be le t behind.< Im ressing the Science out of Children The Science and (ngineering Television &etwork FS(T&G would like to help science teachers. In a dra t Internet announcement" I1I S(T&-s president" ,ary .el6" talks about the moving pictures that scientists and engineers create" ranging rom <da66ling supercomputer animations produced by mathematicians and physicists to the video images o living cells shot by biologists through power ul microscopes.< Teachers lack access to this <e0citing visual material< 77 which he thinks a shame" or <it is precisely the stu that could stimulate a greater interest in mathematics and science.< His proposed solution? (mploy the Internet-s video capabilities.
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The assumption here is dead wrong. @ideo images" o course" will have their worthwhile uses. 9ut high7tech da66le is not what stimulates interest in math and science. Such a notion nevertheless seems implicit in much o the push or online science lessons today. !nless nature comes packaged with cinematic drama and slick technology 77 unless we ind some way to capture the most remote and astounding phenomena Fso our ears seem to runG 77 we-ll lose the kids. *es" supercomputer animations o subatomic transactions and video images o strange" unseen interiors possess a certain wow actor. 9ut they do not oster in the child either an understanding o the world or a more eager pursuit o scienti ic discipline. 'ne doubts" in act" whether these productions are received in any di erent spirit than Saturday morning cartoons and Hollywood-s special e ects. .hat they are likely to do is create a demand or the ne0t advance in our ability to deliver a high7impact image. %ost o us probably need only re er back to our own e0perience in order to satis y ourselves that television nature programs 77 presumably much more impressive than the city park or the woods out back 77 o er no particular encouragement or children to become naturalists. The act is that e orts to impress children into science are more likely to do the opposite. The crucial re5uirement is not that the child receive ma0imal impact rom some display" but rather that he active$y discover within himse$f a connection to the phenomena he is o+servin). In this connection 77arising rom a properly engaged imagination and not rom a sur eit o stimulation 77 are to be ound both the need to understand and the terms o understanding. 9ut the supercomputer animations and strange videos visited upon him by technology preempt the imagination and operate at an abstract remove rom the child. :ust as he may have ew grounds or distinguishing the evening news rom the ensuing movie 77 and there ore little cause or personally engaging the issues over which the reporters seem so distantly e0ercised 77 so" too" he may ind himsel 5uite unrelated Fother than incidentally and passively" via the 3olt levelG to images presented in the name o science. T.o-&in te science !essons Science museums have come a long way in technological sophistication during the past several decades. .e pour great sums o money into e0hibits designed to impress. Have these high7tech e0hibits brought greater teaching e ectiveness? )onald &orman is skepticalB I the people stick with an e0hibit or as long as two or three minutes" the curators are delighted. Two or three minutes? How on earth can anyone ever learn anything in two or three minutes? It takes hours. $ecall the estimate o ive thousand hours to turn a novice into an e0pert Fand even this isn-t really enoughG. ,ranted" we don-t e0pect the science museum to produce e0perts" but two or three minutes? I+I The director o a ma3or science museum e0plained to &orman that <visitors don-t want to read lengthy descriptions or to hear the details o science. .e have done our 3ob i we can get them e0cited by the phenomena o science.< So the e0citement need no longer be the e0citement o a penetrating sympathy and an aroused understandin)8 :ust entertain the visitor" and hope the impact will lead to active interest sometime later. 'h" yes" these museum e0periences may create a thirst or more. 9ut this particular thirst will most likely be 5uenched in a theme park" virtual reality game" or high7tech movie. I these latter are any guides 77 and" in our society" they are already perhaps the dominant custodians o childhood imagination 77 one can receive an impression without its provoking an increased desire to understand. 2urthermore" it seems to me that anyone who directly observes the impressions made upon children through technical arti ice and the media o arti icial vision can only conclude that these are more likely to kill o the world than to bring it alive. Certainly there seems to be a growing consensus that the sustained assault o televised images tends to induce apathy" hyperactivity" inability to concentrate" and various antisocial e ects in young children. "here #oes .on#er co&e fro&A How" in this conte0t" can we naively e0trapolate rom a child-s i0ation upon captivating images to his pursuit o science? The child who has 3ust watched 0urassic Par' may be obsessed with dinosaursH he may want you to buy every plastic" stu ed" and in latable dinosaur within sightH he may" i he is young enough" delight in a visit to a ossil site where he can scratch around or real bones. .e can only hope" however" that the scratching does not prove" over the long run" a sadly unvisceral e0perience compared to watching the movie. ' course" it need not 77 not i we have given the youth ul e0plorer the ability to bring a ragment o bone alive" discovering in it a lost world o mysteryH not i " peering through the eye sockets o a skull" he becomes a lithe" our7legged hunter prowling a wondrous" alien landscape" skirting the shadows o imagination in an endless" hungry 5uestH not i he senses within himsel something o this same instinctive prowess" both honoring it and inding appropriate e0pression or itH not" inally" i he is encouraged during each passing year to ill in this world o his e0plorations with an ever deeper and truer imagination. I " on the other hand" his imagination has been co7opted by the incessant bombardment o arti icial images" orced upon him in e0cruciating and da66ling detail" with little o his own creative participation" then the outcome is indeed doubt ul. .ith each resh assault we deprive him o one more opportunity" be ore his psyche is wholly distracted and scattered" to develop a sense o wonder and reverence be ore the mysteries o the real world 77 the world he can directly perceive and bring to li e rom within. In no other way can the world live.
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There is a di erence between <special e ects wonder< and the true wonder that leads toward a devout scienti ic curiosity. The latter" as I have already indicated" grows rom an awareness o one-s immediate connection to the phenomena 77 rom a sense that the inner essence o what one is looking at is somehow connected to the inner essence o onesel . 9ut this connection 77 despite all the academic ta$' o how we ourselves <construct< the world 77 is something scarcely e0perienced any longer. The world has become alien and our science a basket o abstractions 77 e5uations and particles" ields and statistical distributions. It would be ironic i the scientist" having given up the phenomenal world or these technologically e ective abstractions" should then try to reengender public interest in science by embodying the abstractions in a kind o docudrama 77 a <dramatic reenactment< o nature Fwith technical enhancements" o courseG. In this would be an admission that it is only to phenomena 77 not to e5uations and metaphysically conceived particles 77 that we can ind a connection. And yet" those da66ling supercomputer animations o subatomic realms are 77 as phenomenal displays 77 not merely <virtual<H they are almost totally alse" as any respectable physicist will insist. To e0tract their modicum o abstruse" mathematical truth is hopelessly beyond the primary7age student Fand perhaps the rest o us as wellG. 2urthermore" these alse phenomena o our technological creation are even more remote rom the child than the e5uations by which we con3ure them" or they now stand at two removes rom natureB irst there is the reduction to mathematics" and then the reembodiment o the mathematics in an unreal and deceiving model. All this" however" is e0traordinarily di icult to convey to a person raised on arti icial images and alienated rom the surrounding world. The !oss of nat re Imagine the delight o a very small child" upon whose inger a honeybee or butter ly has 3ust alighted. 9utter ly and child are not then two unrelated creatures. The child is not looking at a butter ly. He and the butter ly have" or the moment" ound themselves sharing destinies in a suddenly trans ormed world. This world speaks to the child" but only because he has plunged into it" and does not know it as disconnected rom himsel . %oreover" an unbroken thread links his delight to the mature awe o the most detached" ar7seeing scientist. In the video image" it is not the world that speaks" e0cept indirectly" by means o abstractions wholly beyond the child-s ability to understand. The child" who can be wonder ully at home in nature" is most de initely not at home amid the comple0 techni5ues o the ilm and computer laboratories 77 nor amid the unapproachable images mediated by those techni5ues. The images are unanchored" loating ree o the world. An anecdote may help here. A correspondent" upset by my views on the use o computers in education" wrote that <with computers" you can watch a caterpillar become a butter ly. *ou can 3ust as easily watch it become a cow" a stegosaurus" or a basilisk.< 'n this basis he claimed that <the message o electronic media is true 77 to the imagination.< This is horri ying. Has the imagination nothing to do with nature-s truth? 9y what law does my computer change a caterpillar into a cow" rather than a butter ly? To be sure" both metamorphoses look e5ually <law ul< on my display screen. 9ut that is the horror" or the child will have no reason to di erentiate the one rom the other. In nature" however" one would be beauti ul" and the other a grotes5ue nightmare. #ity the children in whom we plant such nightmares as i rom the hand o nature hersel D 9ut even the video image o a caterpillar changing into a butter ly may be a nightmare" or it pretends to be <the world"< and yet the little boy-s living e0citement is no longer there. He has been robbed o it in avor o a di erent" more passive ascination 77 one implicated" moreover" in the destruction o imagination. &or can he preserve a sense or the inner truth ulness o the caterpillar-s trans ormation when he inds it arbitrarily 3u0taposed with everish hallucinations. Abstractly" there is no di erenceH in the computer animation everything is law ul" which is to say that natural law 77 nature 77 has disappeared. And even where the images are <real< ones" these realities are now abstract 77 no longer rendered by the true ire o imagination lickering between child and butter ly 77 and they do not cause the inger to tremble. 9y sub3ecting the child to these distant re lections o truth prematurely" we risk destroying his living connection to the world. A child raised in deep communion with nature will later gain an adult ability to deal properly with abstraction. 9ut even or the adult" abstraction wholly divorced rom its matri0 o origin leads only to e ective power shorn o understanding or meaning. That is why the e5uations governing subatomic <particles< have landed any who bother to consider their meaning in a metaphysical 5uagmire. The e5uations have become so utterly detached rom the phenomena o the world that we cannot ind our way back. The physicist may choose the lostness o her abstractions. 9ut or the healthy child this lostness is truly a nightmare" and we are criminal to in lict it upon him" unasked. -eferences 1. &et announcement" <Science and (ngineering Television on the InternetB Scienti ic #ublishing in a &ew %edium"< posted by S(T& FS(T&Nmitvma.mit.eduG" September 18" 1??1. +. &orman" 1??1B 1?.
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Children of the $achine 'ne wants so badly to $i'e what Seymour #apert has done. In his book The Chi$dren4s 3achine he de tly limns the sti " repellent" institutionali6ed absurdities o conventional education. His emphases upon the child-s natural proclivities" in ormal classroom settings" the integration o education with li e" and the sheer un o learning all bear on what is wrong with education today. He condemns the idea o teacher7as7technician. And best o all" he repeatedly stresses a <central theme< o his bookB the <tendency to overvalue abstract reasoning is a ma3or obstacle to progress in education.< .hat we need" he tells us" is a return to <more concrete ways o knowing< Fp. 11=G. #apert made his reputation in education by introducing computers in the classroom 77 and" particularly" by creating the Cogo language" which enables young children to learn through programming. That may help us understand why he places the computer at the heart o his educational program. 9ut it does not ease our perple0ity" verging inally on incredulity" as we read that computer technology is to be the primary instrument or overcoming abstraction" reintegrating education with li e" and embedding the student in concrete learning situations. *et this is precisely #apert-s thesis. It is true that the computer is a concrete ob3ect 77 a magnetic ocal point around which the schoolchild may happily revolve. It is also true that we can" i we choose" assimilate innumerable learning activities to the computer" interest the child in them" and thereby enable him to learn <concretely"< in the course o pursuing his interests. 9ut it is a strange de inition o <concrete< that places all its stress upon the student-s active involvement" and none at all upon whatever it is he is involved with. The only ully concrete thing a computer o ers the student is its own" perhaps enchanting presence. 9eyond that" it hosts a mediate and abstract world. The image on the screen" the recorded sound" the <output behavior< o a program 77 but not the world itsel " apart rom computer technology 77 constitutes the universe o the student-s learning. It is rather as i we decided to make an encyclopedia the basis o the child-s education. (0cept that the computer" as #apert points out" can be much more engaging than an encyclopedia" appealing as it does to more o the senses" while also inviting the child-s interaction. This makes it easier or the child to remain caught up in the computer-s presentation o <reality< 77 and there ore inserts a more distracting" more comprehensive veil between him and the world into which he was born than an encyclopedia ever could. !n ortunately" many schools have relied upon what one might call the <encyclopedia model o education.< In decisive ways 77 although they are not the ways he has considered 77 #apert-s employment o computers in the classroom strengthens this model. Ho. #o chi!#ren !earnA 9ecause #apert-s views are highly in luential both in the !nited States and abroad" it is worth the e ort to track the pain ul contradiction running through his book. In order to do that" we need to begin with some o what is most right about his approach to educationB #he unity of knowledge The pursuit o a single interest" i allowed to rami y naturally" can lead to all knowledge. #apert cites his own adult e0perience with the study o lowers" which led him to Catin" olk7medicine" geography" history" art" the $enaissance" and" o course" botany. This potential unity" however" is destroyed as i deliberately by the traditional" rigid division o sub3ects and the ragmented schedule o the school day. School should develo a child0s ca acities" not fill him with facts This is the cry o every would7be re ormer. &evertheless" in our day it is a conviction remarkably hard to honor under ire in the classroom. Somehow we can-t shake the eeling in our bones that knowledge is something we can collect and regurgitate Fwhat else is the <in ormation< everyone lusts a ter today?G rather than a discipline o our aculties and character. #apert" however" with his personal commitment to li elong learning" does seem to grasp in 5uite a practical way that the classroom must en)a)e the student i it is to develop capacities rather than bury them. We learn through immediacy and direct e1 loration 'pposing a one7sided doctrine o scienti ic ob3ectivity" #apert argues that schools distance the child too much rom the ob3ect o study. Children" he says" <are at risk because they do not have access to a wider immediacy or e0ploration and have only very limited sources to which they can address 5uestions< Fp. 11G. .hen we teach them mathematics" we should encourage them to draw on their own interests" as well as their direct e0perience o number and space. FHe illustrates how cooking leads to a practical acility with math.G <,eometry is not there or being learned. It is there or being used< Fpp. 1;71=G. (ven more pointedly" he chides an imaginary critic this wayB <The reason you are not a mathematician might well be that you think that math has nothing to do with the bodyH you have kept your body out o it because it is supposed to be abstract" or perhaps a teacher scolded you or using your ingers to add numbersD< Fpp. 1171+G

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Abstract reasoning is overvalued #apert dismisses as <perverse< the e ort to give children a acility or abstraction as early as possible" and tries instead to <perpetuate the concrete process even at my age. $ather than pushing children to think like adults" we might do better to remember that they are great learners and to try harder to be more like them< Fpp. 141" 188G. 9y concrete learning #apert means learning that is inseparable rom some activity" as <kitchen math< is embedded in cooking. He claims that <it is not natural" even i it is possible< to teach practical mathematics as a separate sub3ect. In sumB The construction that takes place <in the head< o ten happens especially elicitously when it is supported by construction o a more public sort <in the world< 77 a sand castle or a cake" a Cego house or a corporation" a computer program" a poem" or a theory o the universe. #art o what I mean by <in the world< is that the product can be shown" discussed" e0amined" probed" and admired. It is out there. (ther rinci les #apert has much else to say that is valuable. 2or e0ample" he appreciates the importance o humor in learning. He does not believe teachers should be bound by rigorous" standardi6ed curricula. He wonders whether the <opacity< o modern machines might discourage learning. And he re3ects uni ormity among schools" pre erring instead the <little school"< the principle o diversity" and the opportunity or <a group o like7minded people 77 teachers" parents" and children 77 to act together on the basis o authentic personal belie s< Fp. +1?G. See%ing a co nter2a!ance to a2straction #apert writes with grace and good humor" e ectively combining anecdote with e0position as he circles his sub3ect. 2rom his own e0perience and that o others" he searches out the sort o <intuitive" empathic" commonsense knowledge about learning< that he says we all possess" and that a wise teacher relies upon when trying to help a student. <#erhaps the most important problem in education research is how to mobili6e and strengthen such knowledge< Fp. +=G. He embraces <concrete science"< contrasting it with the highly rigorous" ormal" and analytic ideology <proclaimed in books" taught in schools" and argued by philosophers" but widely ignored in the actual practice o science.< This ideology badly pre3udices education against concrete constructions" play" serendipity" and the pursuit o direct interests. .e need to give our children <a more modern image o the nature o science< Fp. 18AG. #apert is no doubt right about this. 'r" rather" hal 7right. I a alse picture o science as immaculately ormal and analytic proves tenacious in its grip on us" it tells us something important about ourselves. The alsehood is not so easily correctable precisely because it represents an entrenched ideal toward which many o the sciences 77 and certainly the <hardest< ones 77 continue to strive. So even when the scientist recogni6es the 5ualitative" intuition7 ridden" serendipitous daily reality o his work" this recognition has little e ect upon his theori6ing" which is driven toward the e0treme o ormality" abstraction" and analysis by all the acknowledged principles o his discipline. 2ew physicists" in their published papers" are about to downplay traditional" abstract modes o analysis in avor o some new manner o 5ualitative description. And those published papers are the purest statement o the reigning ideals. .hich is to say that the < alse< picture is not so alse a ter allH it is the goal toward which a great part o science continues to move according to a necessity ew have managed to escape. FIncidentally" the computer77 logic machine" number cruncher" and ormal system 77 was originally conceived as not much more than the per ect ul illment o the urge toward calculation and analysis.G So it is not merely that we must give children a more modern image o the nature o science. 2irst" science itsel 77 and our culture" in all its habits o thought 77 must change. 'therwise" scienti ic practice will progressively approach the established ideal" and there never will be a <more modern< picture to give our children. How fundamental are differences in rogramming style ? #apert-s own arguments suggest how sticky it can get when one attempts" with less than radical resolve" to break with the ruling canons o abstraction. He tells about a class o teachers who were learning to draw with Cogo. This programming language allows one to construct increasingly comple0 images rom a ew simple" geometrical shapes. At the most primitive level" or e0ample" a house could be drawn by placing a triangle on top o a s5uare. This" in act" was how the class began. 9ut at a certain point" one o the teachers discovered how to combine very small7scale geometric constructs so as to produce a s5uiggly7looking set o lines that served well as the smoke rising rom a chimney. Subse5uently this became the model or a variety o so ter e ects. #apert goes on to discuss how the teachers began to appreciate di erent programming styles" two o which he dubbed the <hard7edged< and <smoky< styles. The hard7edged style is closer to the analytic" generali6able ways o thinking valued by the traditional" <canonical< epistemology ....%oving rom the hard7edged to the smoky style involved a step away rom an abstract and ormal approach to one that invites all the words that #iaget Ftaken as representative here o a ar wider span o psychological thinkingG would attach to the thinking o younger childrenB concrete" igural" animistic" and even egocentric. This" however" is misleading. It may be true that the hard7 edgedIsmoky distinction represents a signi icant di erence o style. It may also be true that di erent types o people will consistently be drawn to one or the other approach. And it may even be true that the stylistic di erences are in some respects undamental. 9ut there is something else to notice hereB Cogo is re5uiring that" at bottom" both styles be conceived identically. That is" both hard7edged and smoky programmers must think o their artistic constructs" in the irst place" as pro)rams. .hatever result they visuali6e at the start" they must analy6e it so as to derive a step7by7step F<algorithmic<G
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method or producing a higher7level e ect rom a series o almost per ectly abstract" lower7level ones 77 all hung out on a Cartesian grid. .hat this means is that the attempt to create a smoky style at a high level reduces to a hard7edged undertaking at a lower level 77 the level o actual implementation" which is to say" the level at which the student is directly engaged. The smoke" analy6ed closely" is seen to be manu actured in much the same way as the house abricated rom s5uare and triangleH it-s 3ust that the scale o the e ects has changed. %y point" however" is not how the drawing $oo's Fpresumably it will be easy to make the scale o analysis so small as to conceal the basic drawing elements completelyG" but rather what is asked o the artist in order to produce it. ,iven an image he wants to create" he must break it down conceptually into geometrical <atoms"< and then assemble these atoms in a logically and mathematically articulated structure. He operates primari$y in an ana$ytica$ mode that gives him numerically de ined" 5uality7less constructs or manipulation. It is with such analysis 77 and not with an eye or imaginal signi icance 77 that he is encouraged to approach every image. .hat has happened here is that the artistic task has been embedded within a programming task. .hile it may be legitimate to speak o the hard7edged and smoky effects the programmer aims at" the programming itsel 77 which is the child-s immediate activity 77 possesses a undamental character that remains the same regardless o the style o the e ects. The programmer may start with an interest in some aspect o the world" but the act o programming forces him to begin iltering that interest through a mesh o almost pure abstraction. To draw a igure with Cogo" the child must derive a step7by7step procedure FalgorithmG by which he can construct the desired resultB tell the cursor to move so many steps this way" so many that way" and repeat it so many times. 2or e0ample" the ollowing Cogo code draws an e5uilateral triangle with sides i teen units longB 2'$.A$) 18 $I,HT 1+A 2'$.A$) 18 $I,HT 1+A 2'$.A$) 18 This is a long way" on its ace" rom a triangleD The mental algorithm bears only a highly abstract relation to the actual igure. As programmer" the child is encouraged away rom a direct" 5ualitative e0perience o orm" entering instead a web o mathematical relationships. These relationships are e0actly what count when it comes to teaching algorithmic thinking and the non5ualitative aspects o mathematics itsel . 9ut" as we will see" they are not what the younger schoolchild needs. #apert sincerely wants to escape the one7sidedness o an overly analytical" abstract approach to learning. 9ut his discussion o hard7 edged and smoky programming styles at least raises the 5uestion whether 77 or all his appeals to the intuitive" the concrete" the personal" the immediate 77 he has indeed ound the proper counterbalance to abstraction" or whether abstraction has consolidated its triumph by assimilating the proposed remedies to its own terms. I ask this with some trepidation" since #apert-s own urging against overreliance on abstraction couldn-t be stronger. He cautions us at one point to be <on the lookout or insidious orms o abstractness that may not be recogni6ed by those who use them< Fp. 14;G. The only reasonable course here is to honor his counsel by turning it respect ully upon his own work. I1I "hat is i&&e#iacyA #apert believes that computers a ord the child a <wider immediacy or e0ploration.< He takes every opportunity to show how children plunge into this immediacy" propelled by their natural interests. They even give rein to their antasy as they interact with the world on their screens. 9ut how immediate is this world? All re7presentations o the world must be" to one degree or another" abstract. $epresenting re5uires selectivity 77 an a+stractin) o particular eatures rom the broad <given< o e0perience 77 as well as a translation into some sort o representational language. 2or e0ample" a photograph reduces the landscape to a two7dimensional pattern o pigments on a lat sur ace. This pattern appro0imately captures certain color relationships o the landscape" while also encoding some o the mathematical relationships given by the laws o linear perspective. )espite the limitations" we can learn to see the reduction as if it were the real thing. 9ut" o course" it is not the real thing. The same holds true or a computer. 'nly the illuminated screen itsel 77 along with the mouse" keyboard" and other physical apparatus 77 is an immediate reality or the student. #apert repeatedly celebrates the concrete presence o the apparatus" and the student-s active involvement with it. &o one will deny him this. 9ut the virtue o immediacy possessed by the technical device as such is not a virtue o the content mediated by that device. The di iculty so many have in making this distinction 77 or in inding it signi icant 77 is remarkable" and suggests that the computer-s greatest danger may lie in its power to alienate us rom the world" unawares. All this merits elaboration" which I will attempt by considering the primary uses #apert envisions or computers in the elementary school classroom. These are three" having to do with the computer as an interactive repository or knowledge" as a programmable device" and as a controller or <robots< built with Cego blocks. The irst and last o these receive attention in the ollowing sectionH computer programming" already touched upon" is taken up again later in the chapter.
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3# cation 2y hyper&e#ia :enni er" a our7year7old preschooler" asked #apert where a gira e puts its head when it sleeps. <%y dog cuddles her head when she sleeps and so do I" but the gira e-s head is so ar away.< The 5uestion sent him scurrying through his books or in ormation about the sleeping habits o gira es. 9ut then he wondered why :enni er could not conduct this kind o investigation hersel . 'bviously" she couldn-t do so by reading treatises on wildli e. It is in our power" however" to create a <Enowledge %achine< 77 a computeri6ed database that would give her <the power to know what others know.< Such a system would enable a :enni er o the uture to e0plore a world signi icantly richer than what I was o ered by my printed books. !sing speech" touch" or gestures" she would steer the machine to the topic o interest" 5uickly navigating through a knowledge space much broader than the contents o any printed encyclopedia. Fp. >G The Enowledge %achine can certainly be built. )oubtless one o its strongest points would be its incorporation o ilm ootage o the sort now appearing in the best televised nature programs. :enni er could call up moving images o a gira e in all the glories o its natural environment 77 and" i she were lucky" perhaps even catch sight o a gira e sleeping. That such images are the most re5uently cited bene it o television may signi y 3ust how ar immediacy has departed rom us. Snakes // real and onscreen Addressing these issues in the &et-s <waldor < discussion group" 9arry Angell wroteB *esterday my 117year old son and I were hiking in a remote wood. He was leading. He spotted JaK 47 oot rattlesnake in the trail about ; eet in ront o us. .e watched it or 5uite some time be ore going around it. .hen we were on the way home" he commented that this was the best day o his li e. He was 3usti iably proud o the act that he had been paying attention and had thus averted an accident" and that he had been able to observe this power ul" beauti ul" and sinister snake. Angell then asked e0actly the right 5uestionB <I wonder how many armchair nature7watchers have seen these dangerous snakes on the tube and said Mthis is the best day o my li e.-< And he concludedB <9etter one rattlesnake in the trail than a whole menagerie o gorillas" lions" and elephants on the screen.< :enni er-s teacher" o course" could not respond to her in5uiry by taking her on a sa ari. &either can most o us encounter rattlesnakes at will 77 even i we want to. 9ut this is hardly the important point. The issue has to do with the nature o immediacy" whatever we happen to be e0periencing. In this regard" any emphasis on dramatic" < ootage7worthy< content is itsel 5uestionable. In the words o Eevin )ann" another contributor to this same &et discussionB As an environmental educator leading ield walks or many years" I ound I o ten had to wrestle with the act that kids Fand adultsG who had been raised on lots o this programming e0pected the same sort o visual e0travagan6a to un old be ore their eyesH they e0pected a host o color ul species to appear and <per orm< or them. And a third contributor" high school teacher Stephen Tonkin" addedB I have precisely the same problem with astronomy. The kids no longer seem to want to learn about the movements o the stars and planets" but want to get onto the small end o a telescope as soon as possible. They are then disappointed when the somewhat blurry image o :upiter" although optically many times better than what ,alileo saw" does not match up to the space7probe shots they see on the goggle7bo0 or in encyclopedias. It-s not 3ust a matter o unrealistic e0pectations and conse5uent letdown. The real 5uestion about the Enowledge %achine 77 as also about television 77 is whether the e0pectations it induces" and the e0perience it o ers" have anything to do with a healthy" knowledge7 producing participation in the world. 2or the world mediated by the screen simply is not the world. The skills needed to navigate the technical device are not at all the skills needed or a discipline o nature observation. &or is the e0perience and understanding that results rom the one conte0t e5uivalent to the e0perience and understanding that results rom the other. .hat takes shape upon the screen is reduced" translated" abstract" and there ore remote rom the child" however entrancing it may nevertheless be. #apert is correct in saying that the student learns through involvement. 9ut surely an essential part o this truth is that the learning relates to the nature o the thing one is involved with" and the mode o involvement. It is simply backward to immerse the elementary school student in an arti icial" computeri6ed environment be ore he has learned much at all about the world. How can he translate the terms o arti ice" the language o representation" back into a reality he has never known? .hen the Scienti ic $evolution began" practical e0perience o the world tended to be e0tensive" while theory was making its irst" tentative con5uests. The need was or more and better theory. Today the situation is 5uite otherwiseB we tend to be ull o theoretical knowledge" and only weakly amiliar with the world our theory is supposed to e0plain. The greatest need is or direct e0perience.

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This sort o concern applies to more than 3ust theory. Almost the entire range o computer use is characteri6ed by one degree or another o virtua$ reality" wherein the computer is thought to give us" not a theoretical model o the real" but some sort o parallel e0perience virtua$$y $i'e the real. *et" how will we continue to make the 3udgment" <virtually like"< once we have ully e0changed the world or virtuality? .e will have nothing rom which to distinguish the virtual. *ego constructions (arly on" the Cogo programming language was married to the Cego building block. .ith embedded computer chips" Cego toys can be controlled" robotlike" by Cogo programs. The main burden o what I want to say about #apert-s enthusiasm or computer7controlled Cego robots will ollow shortly. Here I will only point out that these plastic Cego blocks" compounded o various geometrical shapes" stand at a considerable remove rom the branches and stones" reeds and burrs" with which a child in more immediate contact with nature might play. The child-s imaginative use o the blocks is already constrained 77 i only by their shapes 77 toward <engineering< applications. The pursuit o design is nudged toward arti icial regularity. The di erence between a sand castle and a Cego ortressH between a carved" wooden boat and a computer7guided" motori6ed" Cego boatH between a puppet o stick" cloth" and stu ing" and a Cego igure 77 these di erences are worth re lecting upon. That natural ob3ects might speak to the child in a rich" sympathetic language oreign to more sterile Feven i more <realistic<G ob3ects is something we today have a hard time appreciating. It remains true" however" that our ancestors knew the world as ensouled" and certainly the younger child still today has something like the same e0perience. .e should at least ask what developing capacities o the child eed upon the orms and substances o nature be ore we casually substitute or them our latter7day arti ices. I+I In any case" there is no doubting that the regularly shaped" plastic Cego blocks it particularly well with #apert-s emphasis upon the algorithmic and programmable. There is no neat algorithm or either carving or sailing a little wooden boat in the usual" childlike manner 77 and yet these activities o er a great deal o worthwhile e0perience" rom which a later appreciation o mathematics and engineering can most healthily arise. The upshot o all this is" I think" that the Enowledge %achine" Cogo programming language" and robots do involve children in a concrete learning environment possessing genuine immediacy 77 but they do so only when the <sub3ect< is the most abstractB mathematics and the 5uantitative aspects o engineering" science" and computing. All other sub3ects are approached either indirectly through these primary abstractions F3ust so ar as the emphasis is on programmingG or through a complementary" televisionlike abstraction F3ust so ar as the emphasis is on the computer as a knowledge resourceG. ' course" children" being irrepressible" will tend to make o every conte0t a concrete one 77 whether this involves playing <ball< with Cego blocks" creatively crashing their elaborate constructions" or simply ocusing on the immediate construction process. %y argument here has to do only with the distinctive claims made or the programming e0perience and or the computer as a knowledge resource. These claims" a ter all" are central to #apert-s book" and are one reason or the widespread pressure to introduce computers into the primary school classroom. Inso ar as the proponents o CegoICogo are simply advertising the bene its o concrete learning environments" I have no 5uarrel with them. 9ut" as every good teacher knows" there is little di iculty in getting children to work concretely and creatively with whatever materials are at handD The e0pense o computers is hardly necessary or this. And when computers are imported into the classroom" then we need to recogni6e that their distinctive contri+ution is to move the child-s e0perience away rom the concrete" and toward the abstract. The remainder o this chapter will" I hope" ill out this statement. Ho. fast is :eroA )awn" a kindergarten student" was playing with a computer program that made ob3ects move across the screen at a speed determined by a number she typed. #apert relates her e0citement upon reali6ing that 6ero" too" was a speed. She had recogni6ed" as he puts it" that <standing still is moving 77 moving at speed 6ero< Fp. 1+;G. He sees in this a replay o the Hindu discovery that 6ero could be treated as a number. %oreover" he tells us that many children make the discovery on their own 77 without aid o a computer 77 when they hit upon the amiliar 3oke" <Are there any snakes in the house? *es there are" there are 1ero sna'es.< So this is not a strange oddity about computersH it is part o the development o mathematical thinking. The computer probably contributes to making the discovery more likely and certainly to making it richer. )awn could do more than laugh at the 3oke and tease the teacher and her riendB Accepting 6ero as a number and accepting standing still as moving with 6ero speed increased her scope or action. A little later she would be able to write programs in which a movement would be stopped by the command S(TS#(() A. (ven more interesting" the 3oke can be e0tended. JAn ob3ectK will obey the command 2'$.A$) 78A by going backward i ty steps. Fp. 1+=G )awn-s e0perience may not be <a strange oddity about computers"< but #apert-s satis action in it de initely testi ies to an e0traordinary" i une0amined" urge to push the child-s learning toward abstraction. Two things need saying about this particular anecdoteB
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2irst" )awn was being trained to see a moving ob3ect as a purely abstract 5uantity 77 what we call its speed. .hy abstract? 9ecause" or the sake o her revelation" the nature o the ob3ect itsel had to all completely out o the pictureH whether it was a light bulb or a 6ebra made no di erence to the numerical speed she was learning to <see in her mind.< &or did it matter much whether the ob3ect moved up or down" in a curve or a straight line" to the le t or to the right. And" inally 77 which is #apert-s main point 77 it didn-t even matter whether the ob3ect was moving or resting. This is the height o abstraction. It turns this kindergarten girl-s attention away rom everything but a certain 5uantity. It starts her on the way toward that pure <head world< that is almost the entire world o our era. 9ut" apart rom the sheerest abstraction" rest is not movement. It is more like the source o all movement 77 a act attested to not only by the ancient notion o an unmoved mover" but by our own physical and psychological e0perience o the various meanings o <rest< Fe0perience that will rapidly become irrelevant to all )awn-s theori6ing about the worldG. &or is vertical movement the same as hori6ontal movement" or circular movement the same as straight movement" or movement to the le t the same as movement to the right. Are all these distinctions meaningless" or at least irrelevant to )awn-s intellectual growth? Certainly the ancients would not have thought so" or their 5ualitative cosmos was thick with elt di erences between rest and movement" right and le t" up and down. And surely every modern dancer and every artist still has a direct e0perience o these di erences" inding in them material or e0pression. Children themselves $ive in their movements" and can readily be taught to bring the various 5ualities to uller awareness 77 i " that is" they are not instructed early and systematically to ignore these 5ualities" which we have long been convinced have no place in scienti ic descriptions. Second" as to the claim that )awn-s computer was simply assisting and making <richer< a discovery re5uently occurring to children without computersB this is 3ust not true. The <6ero snakes< business 77 so typical o the wordplay children love 77 centers on peculiarities about the meaning o <6ero.< These" however" are not normally elaborated by the child as ruling abstractions. In a natural learning environment" the 3oke is highly unlikely to result rom a systematically trained observation in which one learns to look past the immediately given ob3ect and see in its place an abstract" numerical property. A child so trained will indeed pick up an early ease with mathematics" but will not know the world to which she subse5uently applies her mathematics 77 an imbalance that admittedly may it her well or the adult society into which she will move. In actual act" I suspect that the 3oke usually occurs when the child is scarcely thinking about particular ob3ects at all. She is simply struck humorously by the discovery that people use <6ero< like other numbers 77 which is a long way rom any pro ound grasp o their theoretical reasons or doing so. The usage wouldn-t be unny i she wasn-t ully aware o the real" 5ualitative di erences between 6ero and other numbers 77 the di erences )awn is being trained to lose sight o . Cy2ernetics #apert introduces cybernetics by distinguishing between an artillery shell and a smart missile. The shell rides upon a single e0plosion" all the conditions or which must be precisely calculated in advance. As the distance or the shot increases" it is harder to allow correctly or temperature and wind conditions. A smart missile" on the other hand" operates on the principle #apert calls <managed vagueness.< Caunched 3ust roughly in the right direction" it relies on continual eedback to make midcourse corrections. In this way it can home in with e0treme accuracy upon the remotest o targets 77 as those who watched television coverage o the ,ul .ar are vividly aware. #apert sees in this cybernetic principle o eedback an opportunity or children <to invent Fand" o course" to buildG entities with the evocatively li elike 5uality o smart missiles< Fp. 1>1G. He tells us o one eight7year7old girl who constructed a <mother cat< and <kitten< rom Cego blocks. .hen the kitten <wanted< the mother" the girl would make it beep and lash a light on its head. The mother was programmed to move toward the light. That is where smart missiles come inB The Cego cat never <knows< at all precisely where the light is locatedH all it <knows< is vaguely whether it is more to the le t or more to the right. The program makes the cat turn a little in the appropriate direction" move a little orward" and repeat the cycleH turning one degree or ten degrees on each round will work e5ually well. Fp. +AG #apert-s conclusions rom all this are dramatic. The cybernetically motivated cat is <more in tune with the Jchild-sK 5ualitative knowledge ... than with anything precise and 5uantitative. The act that it can nevertheless ind its way to the e0act destination is empowering or all 5ualitative thinkers and especially or children. It allows them to enter science through a region where scienti ic thinking is most like their own thinking< Fp. +AG. 'r" again" the shi t to cybernetics <widens the ocus rom prototypes o behavior with a primarily $o)ica$ lavor ... to include prototypes with a more +io$o)ica$ lavor.< It even encourages antasy" he says" since children describe many o their devices as dragons" snakes" and robots Fp. 1>+G. All this needs emphasi6ing. #apert is not simply engaged in the 5uestionable task o teaching this eight7year7old the mathematical principles o cybernetics F or which there could hardly be a more it tool than Cego constructions harnessed to CogoG. He is sei6ing upon the claim that this kind o programming gives the child a irst" scienti ic approach to biology. The robot engages in <purpose ul< behavior Fhe puts the word in 5uotesG" and provides <insight into aspects o real animals" or e0ample" the principle o M eedback- that
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enables the Cego cat to ind its kitten< Fpp. 1?7+AG. Indeed" he considers the biological realism here su icient to re5uire a kind o semidisclaimer about reading anything metaphysical into the devicesB The pragmatic discovery that the JcyberneticK principle can be used to design machines that behave as i they are ollowing goals is basic to modern technology. The act that the thermostat seems to have the goal o keeping the temperature in the house constant does not stir me particularly. 9ut however much I know about how such things work" I still ind it evocative to see a Cego vehicle ollow a lashlight or turn toward me when I clap my hands. Is my reaction a streak o residual metaphysics? Is it because the little thing seems somehow betwi0t and between? I know that it isn-t alive" but it shares 3ust enough with living beings to e0cite me 77 and many others too. .hatever the reason" such things are intriguing and making them is an e0citing way to engage with an important body o knowledge. Fpp. 1?47?8G $otherly solicitude ? There is no denying the body o knowledge to which #apert re ers. It inds e0pression in all those disciplines striving to understand the human being as a mechanism 77 albeit an e0tremely comple0 one. It is no surprise" there ore" to ind that here 77 as in the matter o hard7edged and smoky programming 77 the attempted leap toward more le0ible Fbiological" 5ualitative" impreciseG strategies turns out to be a heightening o the original Fphysical" 5uantitative" preciseG approach. I the programming o e0plicit tra3ectories re5uires an abstraction rom real ob3ects and real propelling orces" the programming o <smart"< cybernetic ob3ects is a yet more e0treme abstraction. 2or now it entails the attempted reduction even o purposive behavior to a simple" 5uantitative algorithm. The child" ar rom gaining any immediate e0perience o directed attention Fwhether o a mother cat toward a kitten" or a human mother toward her toddlerG" is taught to make the translation" <this attention is captured and e0pressed by a numerical algorithm governing motion in space.< Shall we wonder i a child so instructed grows up estranged rom her own directing will and motherly solicitude? I am not denying that the use o cybernetic principles yields any gain. In their apparent resu$ts Fas long as we look with reductionist eyes and are willing to deal in 5uantitative appro0imationsG the new programs are in some sense <better< than the old ones 77 <more li elike.< This is obvious on the ace o things. .hat is not so obvious is that 77 because it remains within the sphere o analysis and abstraction 77 the gain comes at a price. *es" we manage 77 in an e0ternal way 77 to simulate a higher unction Fpurposive activityG" but we achieve the simulation only by irst having reconceived the unction in stilted" mechanical terms. .e change in a pro ound way what <doing something purpose ully< means" draining it o everything the child knows directly" which is then replaced by a patina o abstraction. It is no wonder #apert likens his children-s e orts <more to what has recently been called Marti icial li e- than to arti icial intelligence< Fp. 1>+G. The lourishing discipline o arti icial li e is based on the most remarkably pure abstraction imaginable. Chris Cangton" perhaps its leading theoretical guru" has surmised that <li e isn-t 3ust $i'e a computation" in the sense o being a property o the organi6ation rather than the molecules. Ci e literally is a computation.< I1I 2inally" as to the e0ercise o antasy in constructing <dragons" snakes" and robots<B o course" children being children" they will employ their computeri6ed devices in the service o an irrepressible antasy. The 5uestion is whether" as they do so" they will ind their antastic impulses progressively darkened" obscured behind the brittle compactions o logic with which they are orced to play. -especting the chi!# It is appealing to see how naturally #apert accepts the child as his partner in learning. 9ut acceptance means little unless we accept the child for who he is. #apert seems willing" on many counts" to take children or small adults. Puite apart rom his passing remark that <seventh7graders are scarcely children< Fp. 1=4G" he shows himsel eager to let even the very young child establish her own educational agenda. There is" in this" an intimate mi0ture o truth and potential disaster. The disaster is uncom ortably close to the sur ace. In discussing our7year7old :enni er and the Enowledge %achine" #apert observes that children o this age combine <a remarkable capacity or making theories with a nearly helpless dependence on adults or in ormation that will test the theories or otherwise bring them into contact with reality< Fp. =G. 9ut children o our do not make theories and test them" i by those activities one means anything remotely like the logically sophisticated" intellectually centered activity o the adult. The child is not looking or what we tend to think o as <relevant acts"< but rather or a coherent image. And the coherence is e0perienced" not as e0plicit logical consistency" but rather as a pictorial unity o eeling and meaning. I4I 2urthermore" the child-s <nearly helpless dependence< upon the teacher is not something to be scorned or avoided. It is" rather" the natural order o things" whereby the adult bears a grave and inescapable responsibility to help the child enter as ully as possible into her own nature. The act that the era o dependence or human o spring is vastly longer than or animals is not a disabilityH it is the prere5uisite or development o our general" <nonhardwired< capacities. The child is not born already adapted to a speciali6ed niche" but must gradually develop the universal potentials o her reedom. In today-s world" the critical thing is to s$ow down the child-s accrual o in ormation and acts derived rom sophisticated adult intellects. These acts it too closely together 77 like the geometrical <atoms< o the Cogo programmer 77 in a rigid mesh that causes the child-s thought processes to crystalli6e into i0ed orms prematurely. The child loses 77 never having ully developed it in the irst
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place 77 that luid" imaginative ability to let e0perience reshape itsel in meaning ul ways be ore she carves out o it a set o atomic acts. (ven the creative scientist re5uires this ability" i she is ever to escape current theories and see the world a resh. 'therwise" all she can do is to recombine the basic terms already given to her. The ability to reimagine those terms themselves 77 as an architect might reimagine a building to harmoni6e with a di erent setting 77 disappears. The heart o the matter" then" is nearly opposite to what #apert makes it. The in ormation the child can receive rom a Enowledge %achine 77 or any other source" including the encyclopedia 77 is hardly what matters. .hat counts is from whom she receives it. I8I The respect and reverence with which a sub3ect is treated" the human gestures with which it is conveyed" the inner signi icance the material carries or the teacher 77 these are in initely more important to the child than any bare" in ormational content. Her need is not to gather acts" but to connect imaginatively with the world o the adult 77 which is necessarily to sayB with the person o the adult 77 and to ind that her own lo ty antasy Fwhich makes an animate toy o every stick or scrap o clothG can progressively be instructed and elevated so as to harmoni6e with the adult-s wisdom even while remaining true to itsel . To lose sight o the child-s healthy dependence upon the teacher is to orget that all knowledge is knowledge o the human being. It is true that we-ve tried to structure many ields o knowledge as if their content were wholly unrelated to the human being 77 but not even in physics has this e ort succeeded. As to the child" her need is not or acts or in ormation o the sort a machine can convey" but or seeing human signi icances. And she is given these in the person o a teacher whose broad compassion" devotion to the truth" inner discipline" and imaginative reach embraces and creates a itting home or whatever new things approach the 5uestioner 77 a home that can be shared. It is" however" pain ully di icult or most o us to accommodate the child-s need" i only because we are no longer possessed o her imagination" and have striven to eliminate the very terms o imagination rom our science. .e may bask in the child-s evident need or us" but we ail to reali6e that this need is the very heart and hope o her education. It places a grave responsibility upon us to become like little children" so that we can guide her like an elder child leading a younger. 9ecause a logic o intellectual 5uestioning is always imp$icit in the in5uiries o childhood" we can choose to construe those in5uiries as i the child-s mind were actually pu66ling over a bit o missing in ormation" rather than over the picture7coherence and drama o an imaginative content. %oreover" we can train the child to put her 5uestions in the orm we ind most natural" and can even orce her to mimic us in her own thinking at an e0ceptionally early age. 9ut this is also to orce her abandonment o childhood" while at the same time depriving her o her richest potentials as an adult. 5 n an# a thority #apert argues that" by comparison with a Enowledge %achine or video game" <school strikes many young people as slow" boring" and rankly out o touch.< @ideo games teach children what computers are beginning to teach adults 77 that some orms o learning are ast7paced" immensely compelling" and rewarding. The act that they are enormously demanding o one-s time and re5uire new ways o thinking remains a small price to pay Fand is perhaps even an advantageG to be vaulted into the uture. Fp. 8G He asks why schools don-t asten upon the ways children learn most intensely outside the schoolroom. And he suggests that schools may soon have no choice in the matter" or the e0plorers o the Enowledge %achine <will be even less likely than the players o video games to sit 5uietly through anything even vaguely resembling the elementary7 school curriculum as we have known it up to nowD< Fp. ?G I am no de ender o the established curriculum and teaching methods. 9ut my irst impulse is to respond by o ering the parallel reading" <will be even less likely than children raised on television to sit 5uietly....< .hat is obviously right about #apert-s argument is that there is never an e0cuse or education that does not captivate the child and give ull reign to her developing capacities. .hat is 3ust as obviously overlooked is that the mere act o sparking a child-s enthusiastic assent does not prove an activity healthy. .ill the computer7trained child be as bored as the television7trained child when it comes to the struggle to understand and constructively interact with the less predictable" less yielding" less algorithmic" and there ore less programmable real world? #apert cannot help liking the impact o Cogo in the primary school classroom because he sees children gathered around their computers and Cego creations" absorbed" guided by their own interests" doing things in a sel 7directed way 77 and no longer under the tyrannical thumb o a technician7teacher. %uch in this picture is good" but I hope you can see by now how it might add up to an e0tremely worrisome whole. Surely the child is not sovereign in the sense that her own pre erences can reasonably de ine the educational agenda. Her interests are there to be engaged by the teacher" not to replace the teacher. And i the teacher has misconceived his task to be that o in ormation shoveler" we do not save the situation by e0changing the shovel or a computer. There simply is no solution or inade5uate teachers e0cept to help them become ade5uate. To think otherwise is like believing the child o ailing parents would be better o raised by machines 77 it misses the essence o what education is about. The problem can only be i0ed where it occurs. The authority o the teacher" like that o the parent" must issue rom a recognition o the child-s emerging sel and a wise devotion to her needs. Such a wisdom is what the child longs or. To make o the child an adult is to place a burden upon her that she cannot
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rightly carry. 'n the other hand" to treat her as an adult7in7the7making 77 bearing potentials we can scarcely hope to honor as ully as she deserves" and or which we must sacri ice something o ourselves 77 this is to create a human environment in which she can belong and blossom. 6n search of i&agination I suggest in a later chapter that true imagination sei6es upon the 5ualitative and phenomenal rather than the abstract and theoretical. I ;I Imagination is a pro ound power o synthesis which" at the most undamental level o its operation" gives us the <things< o the perceptual world 77 trees and clouds" streams and rocks. It is also the means by which we apprehend new meanings and obtain our most basic" revelatory insights regarding the world" or these insights always re5uire us to see the world with new eyes. 'perating at an unconscious level" the imagination is responsible or those di erent ways o <carving up< the world that we all inherit" based on the languages we speak. 9ut the imagination can also be disciplined and employed consciously 77 as we all must at least begin to do when we undertake the sensitive understanding o a oreign language. #apert seems to glimpse the real challenge o imagination when he writes that the deliberate part o learning consists o making connections between mental entities that already e0istH new mental entities seem to come into e0istence in more subtle ways that escape conscious control. Fp. 1A8G !n ortunately" he nowhere pursues the second part o this statement" apparently setting the matter aside as unapproachable. Such reticence is understandable" or the pu66le o imagination Fand its correlate" meaningG resists solution in our day. And yet" so long as we lack any approach to this problem" we inevitably reconceive the imagination-s true operation 77 that is" we reconceive this undamental" world7 creating principle o synthesis 77 as nothing more than the discursive synthesis o ideas upon a ramework o logic. This is to lose the imagination in avor o those rational and analytical operations by which F5uite properly" as ar as they goG we are in the habit o articulating comple0 ideas. So it is that the promise o #apert-s <relational" concrete thinking< 77 which might have employed the imagination centrally 77 dissolves" as we have seen" into logical" analytical thinking. His <emergent e0planations< are simply the other side o higher7order abstraction. He applies both these 5uoted phrases to the cybernetic programming style" where the child must <imagine< hersel inside the ob3ect" and where the ob3ect-s per ormance does not seem" in any direct way" to be <what the computer was told to do< Fpp. 1?4" +AA71G. However" this cybernetic programming simply places another level o computational abstraction between the child and the phenomena she is supposedly coming to understand. The distance between visible output and algorithm is even greater than in the more direct" less le0ible sort o programming. There is no true imagination directed at the behavior itsel as sentient or conscious activity Fspeaking o the mother cat I kitten e0ampleG" but rather an analysis o it in one7dimensional" mathematical terms. This is the assimilation o imagination to analysis with a vengeance. I believe we will remain indebted to #apert or his respect ul stance toward the child" and or his richly conceived learning environments" among other things. As to the problem o imagination" one hopes or e0citing results should #apert seek to e0plore urther his dangling allusion to those <more subtle ways< by which <new mental entities< are ormed. The task is urgent" or one thing is certainB we will not manage to preserve the imagination o childhood until we at least make a start at recovering it in ourselves. Stalking the wild kitten .e can discover occasional pointers toward imagination" even i in odd places. .hat immediately occurs to me regarding the cat and kitten 77 via a ew associational links 77 is the work o the remarkable tracker" scout" and wilderness e0pert" Tom 9rown" :r. 9rown spent some twenty years o his youth in the outdoors" honing to an almost unbelievable pitch his animal tracking and other survival skills. He learned to romp play ully with many wild animals" and allowed deer to scratch themselves" unawares" against his outstretched ingers" as i against hanging branches. 'ver the past two decades" he has been demonstrating his skills and teaching many thousands o students to develop similar 77 i more rudimentary 77 capabilities o their own. Caw en orcement agencies have employed his tracking prowess against criminals. I=I 9ut the point is this. !nder the tutelage o Stalking .ol " the Apache scout who was his childhood mentor or 1A years" 9rown was set numerous tasks o the imagination. Above all else" he was taught a penetrating and participative awareness o his surroundings. He had to understand them so well from the inside" and to merge so completely with them" that he passed through the woods without leaving the slightest ripple 77 even while taking in the signi icance o every disturbance on the bree6e or miles around. He remarked o his advanced tracking e0ercises that" inally" he had to orget all the technical details Fhe studied literally scores o minute <pressure points< in each ragmentary trackG and +ecome the animal. In the end" he says" it was a matter o <tracking the spirit< 77 knowing the animal so well" and entering so deeply into the meaning o its tracks" that he could say what it would do ne0t even where no physical evidence o the track remained. &eedless to say" <what it would do ne0t< varied greatly rom one species to another. The o0" the deer" and the raccoon each had its own way o being. .ould the animal head upstream or downstream in a particular circumstance? ,o around or over a barrier? %ove toward its <home< or away 77 or e0ecute a pattern o comple0 indirection? To grasp the individual animal-s character" to take hold o its <archetype< in such a way as to predict its behavior in a previously unobserved circumstance 77 this is indeed to employ the
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imagination as an instrument o knowledge. And such knowledge" such training" appropriately ramed" can engage even the small child in a wonder ul way. I wonderB once we have seen a child so engaged" could we ever again tolerate the reduction to a <cybernetic algorithm< 77 or any other algorithm 77 o the cat-s motherly approach to her kitten? -eferences 1. %uch that I will say here depends or its positive orce upon a amiliarity with the general pedagogical approach outlined in appendi0 Aapp+>K" <(ducation .ithout Computers.< The reader is encouraged to review that appendi0 in con3unction with the current chapter. +. See appendi0 Aapp+>K" <(ducation without Computers.< 1. Puoted in .aldrop" 1??+B +>A. 4. 2or an elaboration o this point" see appendi0 Aapp+>K" <(ducation .ithout Computers.< 8. I discuss this urther in the section" <9eyond Shoveling 2acts"< in chapter +8" <.hat This 9ook .as About.< ;. Speaking o 'wen 9ar ield-s workH see chapter +1" <Can .e Transcend Computation?< =. 2or more on Tom 9rown-s story" see" or e0ample" 9rown and .atkins" 1?=?" and 9rown" 1?>+. Steve Talbott BB The Future Does Not Compute" Chapter 14 &ancing with $y Com uter I write or a living 77 pain ully" line by line" word by word" endlessly revising under an intense compulsion until inally" by clari ying the words on paper" I succeed in clari ying my own thoughts. And it-s true" some o the revising does occur on paper. 9ut I 5uickly enter the edits on my computer" which is the primary venue or this e0cruciating <trial by composition.< I can scarcely imagine producing a lengthy manuscript on an old7 ashioned typewriter 77 every time my revisions got too thick on the pages" I-d have to retype the entire thing. .ith a computer" I simply enter the changes and print out a resh copy o the whole. There-s something reassuring about this prodigal issuance o clean dra ts. A ter all" scribbling edits on top o edits on top o edits 5uickly becomes demorali6ing 77 not to mention illegible. *ou might ask" however" whether by now I-d have gained a more disciplined mind i my writing tools were simpler. I might have less editing to do. &ecessity would constrain me to think care ully first" and only then commit the words to paper. %y thought processes would be more clearly detached rom the automatic re le0es o my ingers. .ell" I-m not so sure .... The 5uestion troubles me. 2or the moment" I will let it pass. 9ut it does use ully remind me o something else. Ho. to &a%e & sic at the %ey2oar# Have you noticed the typing habits o computer engineers 77 a great number o them" anyway? They type a se5uence o characters in a convulsive burst" backspace through hal o what they typed" then retype" pause" launch into another convulsive burst" backspace .... And so they create their so tware" lurching spasmodically rom <i < to <then< to <else.< &or is it 3ust their ingers that betray this cramped style. The whole body picks up on the messages rom the ingers" becoming tense" rigid" i0ated. 'ne can easily imagine this rigidity leaking into the psyche 77 perhaps" in act" we hear its aint overtones in many an email lame. %ore tangibly" there-s the rash o carpal tunnel syndrome cases. It is" o course" the obscenely compliant backspace key that encourages these habits. I" too" have su ered its conse5uences. 9ut I-ve also wonderedB can my computer" which echoes back and magni ies my nervous state with such maddening consistency" become thereby a kind o tutor leading me toward new inner disciplines? That is" i I listen to it with the right sort o alert detachment? In particular" when I notice the deterioration o my typing" what is to prevent me rom e0ecuting an about7 ace and approaching my keyboard like a pianist? Slow the pace down. Cultivate an easy" lowing" gentle rhythm. Re$a6. Cet that grace ul rhythm permeate my whole being. A bit silly" you say? 'nly i dancing to a Strauss walt6 and to a 3ackhammer amount to pretty much the same thing. 9ut I can vouch or the di erence" or I have made e0actly this e0periment Fnot on the dance loor with piano and 3ackhammer" but with my computerG" even i the trial is not yet anywhere near complete. It-s taken two years to +e)in overcoming 77 what? The sly temptations
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o the machine? 'r the tendencies o my own organism? F.here is the line between me and my computer?G .hatever the case" there is no 5uestion that the Strauss approach is more un. ( r changing re!ation to !ang age .hen it comes to email" a great percentage o &et users don-t even bother with the backspace key. #eople who are ully capable o composing articulate" pleasing te0t are content when at their terminals to send o scru y messages they would never commit to stationery. %essages riddled with grammatical errors" typos" non se5uiturs. ,iven the pressure o our urgent schedules" the attempt to do better hardly seems 3usti ied. It is undeniable that our relationship to our own words has gotten looser and looser 77 3ust as it is well known that earlier peoples were bound much more intimately to language. ,o ar enough back" and the word e0erts what now seems to us an almost magical in luence. .ord" thing" and sel were bound together in a mystical unity. The penalty or blasphemy was not so much e0ternally imposed as it was a direct inner e0perience o the disastrous conse5uence o one-s own words. The philologist 'wen 9ar ield remarks somewhere that we can only begin to understand such otherwise incomprehensible events as the In5uisition by reali6ing that the medieval mind could scarcely distinguish between a man-s words and belie s on the one hand" and his innermost" essential being on the other. Canguage was participated in more ully" so that the distinction between speaking a monstrous untruth and +ein) a monstrous untruth was nowhere near so clear7cut as it is today. This is not to 3usti y the In5uisition. &or is it to say that we no longer participate in our language at all. .hen we speak" we still inhabit our words 77 and they take possession o us" even i only in more e0ternal ways. This e0tends right down to the distinctive embodiment each syllable achieves within our physical speech apparatus. These ormations" as gesture" e0tend throughout the entire body. FI-ve heard the claim made that" with ine enough observation" one can distinguish di erent ethnic groups by the ways they open a door or shake hands" because the spoken language lends a recogni6ably distinct character to all physical acts.G (ven when we read silently or imagine someone speaking" our speech organs per orm rudimentary" mimicking movements. %oreover" our dances to language begin earlyB researchers have ound that the prenatal in ant moves in rhythmic response to the words and sounds impinging upon the womb rom outside. &evertheless" it-s a long way rom the In5uisition to the lame wars o the &et 77 despite occasional outward similaritiesD The restraints have been li ted" our intimate connections to our own meanings have dissolved" and we ind ourselves ree to speak any conceivable words that occur to us" with little thought or the conse5uences. 9ut the crucial thing about every reedom is what we do with it. Could it be that here" too" our computers are inviting us to undertake a new discipline? Can .e &a%e .or#s o r o.nA Cet me draw a picture" however one7sidedB I sit at my keyboard and produce all letters o the alphabet with the same" undi erentiated" une0pressive" purely percussive strokes. .ords" phrases" endless streams o thought low e ortlessly rom me in all directions" with so little inner participation that I have reached the opposite e0treme rom the ancient word 77 sel unity. I spew out my words easily" unthinkingly" at no psychic cost to mysel " and launch them into a world already drowning in its own babble. The swelling torrent threatens to engul every deeply considered word" every moment o attentive listening" every initiative emerging as a tender shoot rom a timid heart. F#ity the unborn child who must dance to the renetic tunelessness o this incessantly aggravating assaultDG In too many o my words there is no serenity" no lucent depth o meaning" no set purpose 77 but only the restless discharge o random sur ace energies. And as I produce my own words" so I will likely 3udge those o others" discounting them as the super icial dis9ecta mem+ra they too o ten really are. .e are" perhaps above all else" creatures o language. .hat e ect does it have on us when we immerse ourselves in a sea o cheapened words? 'n the ew occasions when I have spent a couple o nonstop hours reading !S(&(T newsgroups" I have ound my head almost hurting 77 a very di erent e0perience rom" say" spending the same couple o hours reading a well7written book. A lot o this no doubt has to do with the di erence between screen and paper" or between scanning and systematic reading. 9ut some o it" I suspect" also has to do with the rootlessness and disorder o the words themselves. This line o thought 5uickly threatens to become snobbery" so I had better make an end o it. 9ut not be ore asking whether our computers" networks" and bulletin boards" by mirroring and magni ying certain o our tendencies" are pointing out something important to us. :ust when our words have become so easy and careless" so loose and aimless" so wedded to super icial logic while detached rom the persons conversing 77 3ust" that is" when our words have become so computer$i'e 77 it seems a good time to consider what model o the human speaker we would embrace. And i we inally come to declare or a new" inner discipline o words" our computers 77 by aith ully magni ying our ailures 77 will act as worthy disciplinarians. #he #yranny of the &etached Word I care about the words I write" and that is where the danger begins. :ust when I am most taken with their sound and rhythm" their logical articulation" their imagery and meaning 77 then the risk is greatest. 2or words always come rom the past" whether rom the previous moment-s thinking or the earliest genesis o the race. The word-s greatest gi t 77 which is to preserve the thought and
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meanings that preceded us 77 is also its greatest threat" or this enshrined li e o the past easily tyranni6es the delicate tracings o resh thinking. I-m sure most writers have had e0periences like mineB I write a paragraph that <clicks"< and then begin to eel pride in it. 9ut as the larger te0t evolves" the <inspired< paragraph may no longer it 5uite so well. $ather than throw out the valued words" however" I now seek to preserve them by wresting the conte0t into a compatible shape. 'r" what is worse" at every step I allow my thinking itsel to be controlled by the direction o the preceding words" so that a train o thought is always rigidly determined by what has gone be ore. I live in the pleasure o 77 and in obedience to 77 the word o the past. In this way" I conspire against the eruption o new meaning" the une0pected shi t o perspective" the subtle nuances that might re5uire me to 3unk all that ine writing I-ve 3ust produced. .ords now disconnected rom any current thinking 77 dead words" alien words 77 suborn my writing to their own purposes. .e see something similar in group discussion. 'ver time" every group puts a distinctive spin upon its language" establishing god7 and devil7terms" creating a rich background o word associations and" with its cognitive habits" gouging out amiliar and com ortable ruts through the receptive terrain o meaning and in erence. It is a use ul e0ercise to observe how group discussions are governed by in luences rom the past. 'nce topic Q or phrase * comes up" does everyone seem to know instinctively where things are <supposed< to be headed? "or# processing The computer as word processor strengthens the independent power o the words we have already produced. I sit" trans i0ed be ore a video screen" watching the cursor as it slides along and e3ects one word a ter another 77 my words 77 almost as i it were acting under its own power. I easily ind mysel waiting hal 7consciously to see what words come out ne0t. And they do come. .hen my thinking crystalli6es so 5uickly and e ortlessly into a inished" limiting structure o words" I am tempted to abandon urther thinking prematurely" de erring to a kind o automatic thinking encouraged by an e0isting" visible word7structure that wants nothing more than to e0tend itsel in a too7obvious" shallowly consistent" or unconscious manner. Then I no longer summon my wordsH they summon me. (ven the word7processing capabilities that might avor my more active involvement all too readily serve other ends. 2or e0ample" the ease and rapidity with which I can cut and paste te0t enables my hands to keep up more closely with my mind" but also encourages me to reduce my thinking to the relatively mechanical manipulation o the words I see in ront o me. To edit a te0t" then" is merely to rearrange symbols. (0isting symbols and their <sel 7evident< relations 77 not the thinking that ma'es symbols 77 become almost everything. ' course" no two people work in 3ust the same way" and temptations vary. 'n my part" I had" until recently" thought mysel relatively immune to these coercions" or I tend to linger over a paragraph" continually revising it until I am satis ied. 9ut now I recogni6e how <broken up< and ragmented this process has been. I play with my verbal constructions piece by piece" shu ling words and matching incomplete grammatical orms until the whole inally comes together and seems right. %y computer readily abets such a dis3ointed approach. This working rom the part to the whole substitutes or a sustained and intense thinking that grasps the whole be ore struggling to articulate it in a particular manner. I try to build a whole rom parts rather than allow the parts to be determined by the whole. 9ut this is precisely to give the already achieved and incompletely vested word veto power over my thinking. ' ten" or e0ample" I will type the irst phrase o my ne0t sentence without having any idea how that sentence will end 77 or even what it will say. Clearly" then" this opening phrase is determined more by the <natural low< o the preceding words than by the integral re5uirements o my current thinking 77 which I haven-t thought yetD And now what I wi$$ think is substantially constrained by the words I have already written. I may indeed work upon this process until the results seem ully satis actory. 9ut this domination o the word and ragmentation o my thinking 77 to one degree or another inescapable with or without a computer 77 is e0actly what I need to work a)ainst i I would reali6e thinking-s highest potential. #hinking and hysical activity I have 3ust recently been trying to write some o my brie er te0ts by hand" away rom the computer. 9ut I ind within mysel a surprising resistance to the e0periment" even as another part o me senses its healthiness. %y continual urge is to abandon the di icult e ort to think through the matter at hand" and revert instead to the muscular action o typing. It eels like this would be to )et on more &uic'$y with the 9o+. 9ut" o course" this is not true. I anything" there is a natural antagonism between thinking and physical activity. .e tend to purchase our thoughts at the e6pense of activity. @igorous activity 77 culminating in < ight or light< at the e0treme 77 throws us into instinctive" automatic behavior. The natural pose o intense" concentrated thinking" on the other hand" is ound in a body held alertly still 77 almost turned in on itsel F$odin-s sculpture has become a stereotypical image o thisG 77 or else in gentle" rhythmical activity that calms the mind.
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It is easy to observe how" as an important thought begins to take hold o us" we o ten pause or a moment" stopping whatever we were doing. It is as i the energies that might have gone into physical movement are diverted toward the emerging thought. 'riginal thinking is always di icultH it re5uires a discipline o will to 5uiet the body and summon the powers o attention necessary or cognitive e0ploration. It is much easier to grasp at the thoughts that <come naturally"< mediated in less than ull consciousness by physical activity. The computer" as we have seen" cooperates with us in this. Words given by eye" ear" and hand To see my own words visibly orming even be ore my thinking has consummated its creative embrace o the truth is to threaten with abortion the ruit o that union. 2or" o all our senses" the eye helps us most to ree6e the world into inished <things.< These things easily become <mere givens< due to the eyes- passivityB we do not eel or consciously participate in the touch o the light upon the sense organs. And so the visible words I type onto the screen tend all the more to penetrate me with established meanings" whereas any genuine thin'in) I am engaged in must work in the opposite direction" struggling through to the right meanings and even inding a way to invest its words with new meaning. To be ully conscious is to be master o one-s words" not their pawn. The word ringing in my ears 77 whether spoken by mysel or others 77 is not 5uite so easily ro6enH its <ringing< is not only the aural shuddering o its outer body" but also an inner resonance o meaning not yet reduced to a single" mathematically pure tone. To hear a word 77 this was true" at least" until the advent o recorded speech 77 was to hold it in a 5uivering" semantic balance while one read in lection and acial e0pression" timbre and gesture" rhythm and breathing 77 and through all these" the intention o a Sel . .e knew instinctively the multivalence o all meaning. So" also" the word I write with my own hand may well correspond to a thought more rounded and ully gestated" or the di iculty o editing words once committed to paper re5uires a more care ul and complete inner activity to precede the outer act o writing. And somehow the <analog< motions o writing make the words more intimately and e0pressively my own than the e icient" drumlike repetition o nearly identical keystrokes. It is not at all the same e0perience to write For speakG the words <ugly< and < air"< whereas little di erence can be ound in typing them. Such matters become insigni icant only when one orgets that e6pression 77 in matters great and small 77 is what distinguishes and shapes all human li e or good and ill. &othing is ully human that is not wordlike" and every word we e0press" whether through speech or gesture or coherent pattern o action" either augments or diminishes our li e. I the stage actor must be aware o the signi icance borne by every minutest detail o movement or speech" then we who <act< our own lives should not orget the same truth. 5ro& .or#s to infor&ation The computer is becoming ever more sophisticated in its drive to detach the word rom thinking. 'utliners mechanically reshu le or us whatever words already happen to be there" never tiring o their labor" and minimi6ing the re5uirement or us to thin' our way through to the <best words in the best order.< .hen a machine does the shu ling" our subdued attention need only recogni6e when something reasonable has <clicked into place.< %ore aggressively" new" e0perimental so tware actually guides our writing by continually o ering up words and phrases to e0tend the last thing we typed. This generosity is made possible by an analysis o our previous patterns o use. F'ne hopes we really were thinking back then .... G 9ut the analysis works only upon the e0ternal form o our words" not their shades o meaningH it trains us in the repetition o amiliar orms that do our <thinking< or us. $e lecting a terward upon a riend-s gesture or word" I may suddenly reali6e with a 3oltB <'h" so that4s what he meantD< I inally see through a certain sur ace meaning with which previously I may have been content" and thereby grasp a meaning that was not at all evident be ore. Something like this seein) throu)h is re5uired in every apprehension o new meaning. 9ut seeing through is e0actly what the computer-s active intelligence cannot do. The in ormation processor demands te0t in which outer orm and intended meaning are as predictable as possible. I1I The unprecedented use o a word" the une0pected metaphor" may lay bare or the irst time a sublime truth 77 but it will only cause the in ormation processor to stumble. 2or the in ormation processor classi ies" stores" links" and searches te0t based solely on sur ace appearance 77 the <shape< o the words 77 and is programmed on the assumption that these shapes can be mapped to a set o preestablished meanings. 'nly as our language approaches per ect ormality Fe0empli ied by pure logic or mathematicsG does the orm o a te0t become an absolutely reliable key to its meaning. !n ortunately" however" this per ection is achieved precisely because the meaning has inally disappeared altogether 77 a ormal language is all orm and no content. It waits to be applied to something 77 but once it is applied it is no longer ormal" and no longer so easily processed by a computer. Where is the thinking self ? In general" the more abstract and empty Fthat is" ormalG our thought and language become" the easier it is or us to sound o in super icially cogent verbal emptiness 77 and the easier it is or a computer to manipulate the te0t. The thin'in) se$f disappears behind a
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cloud o words" and is carried along passively by the words themselves in conventional combinations 77 the subconscious synta0 o one-s cultural milieu" mechanically e0ecuted" and there ore mechanically readable. This is not surprising when you consider that the programming languages speci ying what a computer can do are themselves ormalH by design they e0hibit no meaning e0cept what is on the sur ace" where the only <meaning< is the e0ternal orm. That is why the computer can read and compile them without ambiguity. It will not ind itsel betrayed by original and unpredictable meanings shining throu)h the words. There is no danger that a metaphorical do" +e)in" or continue will slip into the program-s stream o instructions" pregnant with new and unanticipated meaning. %any researchers in cognitive science think they spy the essence o intelligence in the ormal shu ling o symbols. They have become so used to the detached word that they ind it natural to set words in motion and then to take the result as thinking itsel . The separation o the word rom thinking becomes inal" with the now7mummi ied li e o the word substituting or thinking. &o wonder cognitive scientists spend so much time grappling with the 5uestion whether meaning <means< anything at all. "or# an# i&age It is clear enough that computers have other potentials or the human speaker beside those mentioned here. .hat the screen and keyboard elicit rom me will not be what they elicit rom everyone else. 9ut one notes with a touch o an0iety how di icult it may be to resist the pull o the computer away rom active thinking and toward mere association" convention" and ormal abstraction. 'ne-s ears only increase upon seeing how naturally and harmoniously the computer and television appear to have conspired. Sven 9irkerts" who teaches writing to reshmen at Harvard" tells how I read through their irst papers 77 so neatly word7 processed" so proudly titled with the bold7 aced curlicues that the technology makes possible 77 and my heart sinks. The writing is almost always lat" monotonous" built up o simple units. Immigrant prose. 9ut no" immigrant prose" clumsy though it may be" is o ten alert to the te0tures and imagistic possibilities o the language. This writing is bland and slippery" unpressuri6ed by mind. It shows" i anything" the in luence o rhetoric and televised banality. The prose has little or no musicality and lacks any depth o ieldH it is casually associative in movement" syntactically inert" and barren o interesting re erence. Comple0ity is none0istent. I+I Ironically" technology that was supposed to liberate us rom the <tyranny o linear" rationally structured words< in avor o image" intuition" and pattern" is guaranteeing that whatever words remain are as linear and" in a super icial sort o way" as rationally structured as possible. A ter all" the essence o linearity is not that words should be stuck in a i0ed order" but rather that their meanin)s should be stuck" so that all ordering possibilities are precisely de ined and mechanically e0ecutable rom the start. This is e0actly what the programmable and in ormation7processing computer asks o us. .e must leave our words alone 77 sleeping 77 and may bestow no imaginative kiss upon their inert orms" lest they waken and dance ree o the predictable structures in which the machine has snared them. 9ut debase the word and you have debased the image as well" or the image only <speaks< through its word7nature. .hat is becoming o this nature is evident enough in the prevailing conviction that it is more important or images to make an impact than to possess meaning. <I you catch people-s attention" at least you have a chance to say something meaning ul. 2ail to catch their attention" and you lose your opportunity.< And so the image" too" becomes in its own way a matter o calculation" in luencing us rom without rather than coming alive as new revelation within. How many images assaulting us today are intended to reveal a more e0alted truth 77 to lead upward to comprehension 77 and how many instead lead downward to instinct and mechanism" where <intuition< degenerates into the sort o gut eeling that coerces our buying choices" and where the kind o distracting" pleasurable sensations one eeds on at the cinema are all we can hope or? /////// *et" in the end" the computer per orms an invaluable service or us. In displaying the detached word and bringing it into a kind o li elike motion" the in ormation machine challenges us to discover within ourselves the place o mastery over words. .hat are the sources o our meanings" and how can we consciously draw upon those sources to shape a technology that" unguarded" would destroy meaning Fand there ore also destroy the worldG? The word-s dreary passage through the in ormation machine may enable us to recogni6e the dessication o meaning" and the mechani6ation o thinking" to which we ourselves are liable. It is we who have invested the machine with its computational prowess" which we skill ully abstracted rom our own patterns o thought. &ow we must chooseB to submit our uture to these automated abstractions" or else to e0ercise our own thinking capacities in a way that threatens to dis ranchise the highly capable devices sitting on our desks. 9ut the choice need not be posed 5uite so grandly. (verything hinges on how I receive and work with those <inspired< words on my screen" staring at me rom out o the past. -eferences
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1. I am not speaking here o the in ormation processor-s passive reception o words typed by the user" but rather o its abilities to <read"< <understand"< and <intelligently manipulate< te0t. Such abilities" currently under intense development" will become increasingly central to the computer-s role in society. +. 9irkerts" 1??+. #he %reat Information Hunt It really is ama6ing" this odd ac5uisitiveness with which hordes o academics" engineers" cyberpunks" and sel 7advertised <in onauts< roam the &et looking or treasure troves o in ormation" like so much gold. They hear the cry 77 <There-s in ormation in them thar nodesD< 77 and the rush is on. .ho knows what they do with this gold when they ind it" but or now most o the e0citement seems to be simply in discovering that it-s there 77 on the Net8 It-s almost as i the <electrons< themselves e0uded a certain ascination 77 a kind o spell or subliminal attraction. So7called &etsur discussion groups and publications have been created or the sole purpose o identi ying and sharing &et < inds.< An announcement reached my screen a short while ago" advertising a new orum o this sort and promising e0periences comparable to the great world e0plorations o the past or to the adventures o a antasy novel. The dissonance occurs only when one tries to imagine these same adventurers standing in a library" surrounded in three dimensions by records o human achievement ar surpassing what is now &et7 accessible. .ould there" in these surroundings" be the same" breathless investigation o every room and shel " the same shouts o glee at inding this collection o art prints or that provocative series o essays or these 3ournalistic reports on current events? It-s hard to imagine such a response. 9ut then" i the e0citement is not about actual encounters with e0pressions o the human spirit" what is it about? 'ne gets the eeling that a lot o it has to do with a uturistic" almost religious vision o what the &et is becoming 77 and all these interim discoveries are more valued or the progress they indicate than or themselves. Signs or the aith ul. (piphanies. :ust what the essential vision is" however" remains obscure. To all appearances it has something to do with a peculiar sort o insularity or privacy parado0ically cast as openness to the All. I can <touch< all these resources rom ri)ht here at my des' 77 almost while remaining shut up within mysel . There-s no need to go out into the worldH I participate in an alternative universe" all o which maps into my own corner o <cyberspace.< It-s a kind o return to the womb" promising both sel 7su iciency and universal" solipsistic powers. 9ut perhaps there-s an element o the video game here as well 77 the adventurous 5uest to rack up points or booty captured. FThe nature o the booty in a video game never counts much or itsel H it-s or scoring points" and <in ormation< works 3ust as well.G In the best case" this is a team game" not a competition among individualsH we can all take pleasure in the latest inds" happily reporting our discoveries to each other while sustaining ourselves amid the common euphoria. The euphoria seems only too 3usti ied" or no one can doubt that the treasures will grow ever richer 77 and in tantali6ingly unpredictable ways. So the doctrines o endless (nlightenment and #rogress become the compelling subte0t o a universal video game ew can resist playing. &or can one dismiss the drug analogy. I cyberpunks" the electronic underground" and the science iction writers celebrating cyberspace all suggest such an analogy" they-re not alone. 2ew sur ers disguise the rush they get rom their &et i0es" and the terms o a new" psychedelic vision are now common currency within the &et culture as a whole. %ichael 9enedikt puts the vision to wordsB The design o cyberspace is" a ter all" the design o another li e7world" a parallel universe" o ering the into0icating prospect o actually ul illing 77 with a technology very nearly achieved 77 a dream thousands o years oldB the dream o transcending the physical world" ully alive" at will" to dwell in some beyond 77 to be empowered or enlightened there" alone or with others" and to return. I1I As ,eo &unberg remarked" <it-s not surprising to ind Timothy Ceary on the editorial board o 3ondo :;;;" having decided to drop in again now that things are once more getting interesting.< I+I And" inally" television o ers a more suggestive model or understanding the &et than is usually appreciated. .indow7based user inter aces together with innovative so tware design make it increasingly easy to ill one-s screen with a kind o busy" ever7 changing clutter. .atching the screen as things happen 77 even i it is only te0t scrolling 77 readily induces a semiconscious" <coasting< mental state not too di erent rom the hal 7hypnoti6ed passivity o much television viewing. #artly as a result o this" the entertainment" novelty" and <impact< 5uotient o &et content is o ten emphasi6ed 77 and will be more so as the competition or attention grows slicker and iercer. (ven the ate o whatever active consciousness remains is precarious. The computer-s in ormation7processing tools substitute an easy" automatic activity or higher orms o conscious control. This can be seen" or e0ample" with the emergence o hyperte0t navigation on the &et. The navigator is invited toward that same" distracted" associational manner he may already have learned in ront o the television screen. FThe hyperte0t <button< is close cousin to the remote control button" and the 3oltingly syncopated rhythms o channel sur ing prove e5ually apt or &etsur ing.G Hyperte0t" in the absence o a determined discipline" can discourage any sustained
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attention to another-s train o thought" substituting a collage o impressions or concentration" and a laccid openness or the muscular reception o new and di icult meaning. I the &et-s in ormation riches are less daunting than those o the library" perhaps it is because we don-t really have to dea$ with themH we need only yield ourselves to the in ormation7processing so tware. All these surmises aside" the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the ,reat In ormation Hunt is now under way. #utting in ormation online" buying and selling in ormation" unearthing the decisive in ormational nugget in an out7o 7the7way place" massaging in ormation more e ectively with so tware" adapting the labor market to an in ormation economy" giving everyone e5ual access to public in ormation" preventing violations o private in ormation 77 all these concerns testi y to how many aspects o society have been assimilated Frhetorically" at leastG to the imperatives o in ormation. 'ne might have e0pected the cra6e or in ormation to be 5uali ied by 3udgments o reliability" accuracy" relevance" help ulness" and so on. 9ut somehow this peculiar word" <in ormation"< has escaped the constraints hindering all merely mortal terms. I1I This is shown by the act that no one who hails the Age o In ormation would be e5ually ecstatic about an Age o 'pinion" or Age o ,ossip" or Age o $andom 9its. Apparently" information as such 77 anything storable in a computer 77 is now elt to possess an ob3ective value su icient to underwrite the &ew Age. This aura o ob3ectivity is partly owing to the development o a mathematical theory o in ormation 77 a theory rom which" as it happens" all considerations o meaning are intentionally e0cluded. That is" the ob3ective aura is achieved by eliminating rom view everything related to the content o in ormation. This raises the 5uestion whether the coming age might actually be the Age o &o Content" or the Age o %eaninglessness. 4escent fro& .is#o& There are occasions in our lives when we come upon something priceless 77 something" to be sure" that we might also have encountered on the &et. 2or e0ample" a trans orming work o art" an author whose insights mark a turning point in our own development" or a rare riend. 9ut" o course" we don-t simply find the pricelessnessH we must live our way into it. I an author pro oundly alters the course o my li e" his in luence will almost certainly arise rom my long" intense" and perhaps disturbing contemplation o his writing. It is clear enough that one doesn-t go sur ing the &et or such e0periences 77 and a good thing" too" since only a ool spends his days looking or deep trans ormation or the turning point o his li e. 'ne must attend to the tasks o the moment 77 hoping" perhaps" or the une0pected visitation" but content to let the day-s work yield a day-s harvest. Here" in the <unevent ul< e0pression o discipline and devotion" is where wisdom" growth" and trans ormation take hold o us. They can take hold only rom within. Such wisdom cannot be embedded in the &et For in the libraryG" either as distributed in ormation or as anything else. .isdom is a capacity" a 5uality o one-s activity" a gi t or sei6ing meaning rom li e. 9ecause it knows itsel and is moved only by its own necessities" wisdom is the very substance o reedom. @irtually everyone acknowledges the distinction between in ormation and wisdom. It is regarded as a truism. An anonymous ormula circulating on the &et captures a common reading o the distinctionB

DATA organized is INFORMATION made meaningful is NO!L"D#" lin$ed to other $no%ledge is INT"LLI#"N&" granted e'perien(e is !ISDOM This runs under the heading" <)ata to .isdom Chain"< and it shows how easily the truism can be read as a lie 77 e0actly the lie" moreover" that helps to e0plain the ,reat In ormation Hunt. Data and information are the raw materia$s of wisdom. That is the lie.
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*our wisdom and mine 77 such as it may be 77 arises rom a meeting between ourselves and the wisdom speaking rom our surroundings. 'nly when" as knower" I con ront the world itsel " can I make its wisdom my own. I do not manu acture wisdom rom bits and piecesH I call it down" out o the not7yet7comprehended" through an inner union with it. )ata" on the other hand" are the inal" abstract precipitate o a ading wisdom 77 a li eless and meaningless residue. There can be no reconstitution o wisdom solely rom this residue. I4I I do not con ront the world through my computer" any more than I con ront it through a tape recorder" television" or book. And when I start with data 77 the bits and bytes" the pure" computational elements o the computer-s own shadow7cogitations 77 I have removed mysel as ar rom the world as it is humanly possible to do. ,iven the most e0tensive data set imaginable" I cannot reconstruct the world rom it. 2irst I have to know what the data are a+out" and this orces me ine0orably back toward a new starting point in wisdom. )ata that contained their own meaning would not be data.

(n converting o rse!ves to infor&ation The Chain and the ,reat In ormation Hunt are o a piece" or the conviction that in ormation leads to knowledge and wisdom is what 3usti ies the Hunt 77 or would 3usti y it i the conviction weren-t patently alse. <%any people believe"< (dward de 9ono has observed" <that i you collect enough in ormation it will do your thinking or you and that the analysis o in ormation leads to ideas. 9oth are wrong.< I8I To see what the ,reat In ormation Hunt is really telling us" we need to recogni6e one thingB the &et is the most pronounced mani estation yet o our tendency to reconceive the human interior in the manner o an e0terior" and then to pro3ect it onto the e0ternal world. Cook at almost any inner aspect o the human being" and you will ind its abstracted" e0ternali6ed ghost in the &et. The outer substitutes or the innerB te0t instead o the wordH te0t processing instead o thin'in)H in ormation instead o meanin)H connectivity instead o communityH algorithmic procedure instead o wi$$ed human +ehaviorH derived images instead o immediate e6perience. At the same time" by means o a ubi5uitous metaphor o mentality" popular discourse levitates the &et somewhere between mind and abstraction 77 and not in re5uently strikes toward mystical heights. Two truths o analytic psychology bear on this. The irst is that we can only pro3ect those inner contents o which we have more or less lost awareness. It is the progressive dimming o our interior spaces that enables us to to imagine them out there" ob3ecti ied in some sort o global" electronic" <central nervous system.< The second truth is that when we pro3ect aspects o ourselves" we are driven to recover them 77 o ten madly and in inappropriate places. Surely at least part o the reigning e0citement over the &et-s in ormational riches has to do with this elt possibility o completing ourselves <out there.< I the in atuated lover is convinced that to lose his beloved would be to lose the most important part o his own li e" so" too" the compulsive &etsur er knows that the potentials o his intelligence" the drama o deep discovery" his hopes or mastering li e" all lie somewhere out on the &et 77 i only he can get the proper so tware and hardware tools or con5uering cyberspace. I said above that <only a ool< spends his days looking or deep trans ormation or the turning point o his li e. *et" pro3ection and in atuation make ools even o the best o us. The most satis ying e0planation I-m aware o or some o my own e0periences on the &et and or those o many I see around me is that" having been more or less alienated rom the sources o our own wisdom and sel hood" we hope somehow to gain renewed li e by <electri ying< our sensibilities rom without. The currents o raw data and in ormation on the &et" coa0ed upward by so tware toward an appearance o wisdom" serve the purpose well 77 not altogether unlike the drug trips o the Si0ties. And yet Fas so o ten happens with those who speak o pro3ectionG I may be in danger here o missing the more literal truth. It is" a ter all" true that I can ind more and more o my sel out on the &et. %y concern" or e0ample" about the privacy o in ormation" re lects the act that I have become <inde0able< by Social Security number" credit checkable by bank account number" morally 3udicable by e0penditure record" and intellectually measurable by academic transcript. In an earlier era" the knowledge anyone else might have about me was largely persona$ knowledge 77 knowledge o my character 77 and the prevailing orm o privacy invasion was gossip For physical coercionG. The invasion was something people did to each other" whereas now it looks more and more like a mere manipulation o abstractions in cyberspace. 9ut" then" abstractions in cyberspace must be what we are becoming. There is no 5uestion that the human being today Flike the world itsel G is increasingly re7presented as a collection o in ormation" and that this abstract representation can be <out there< 77 on the &et 77 in a way that I mysel cannot be. 'r" rather" once could not be. This points toward a consideration similar to one I have already submitted elsewhere in this bookB i we choose to reduce ourselves more and more to bodies o in ormation" then it will eventually become true that we can reside on the &et and discover all there is o each
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other there. 'ur pro3ections o ourselves will have replaced ourselves. Then it really will be the communion o human beings 77 whatever husks are le t o such communion 77 that we conveniently gauge in bits per second. "hat #oes the co&p ter seeA .hen I send an email message to a correspondent" it is 5uite obvious that the computer and network per orm a service similar to stationery and the postal service. %y words appear on my correspondent-s screen" as ully available or inspection as i they had been set down on paper. And" o course" he can print them on paper" or orward them to any number o others" or edit them or incorporation in something he is writing" or store them or retrieval ive years rom now" or combine them with many other te0ts and then sub3ect the whole to some sort o programmed analysis. .hy" then" should one speak derogatorily o the <reduction to bits< or the re7presentation o ourselves as abstractions" when we now have at $east the capabilities or e ective communication that we had previously? The 5uestion is reasonable as ar as it goes. It 3ust doesn-t go ar enough. Nowhere is the computer employed simply or its ability to reproduce the unction o earlier technologies. 'r" i that is how things typically start" it is not how they end. Seymour #apert does not import the computer into the classroom so that young children can read books on the screen instead o on paperH he wants them to pro)ram the computer" and thereby to harmoni6e their minds with the computer-s algorithmic intelligence. The .all Street brokerage irms do not pour millions into computer programming merely to duplicate their old trading systemsH the new so tware packages e0ecute sophisticated trading strategies o their own devising. &or are the global databases" now e0panding at lightspeed" 3ust miniaturi6ed iling cabinets and librariesH they are libraries reconceived as in ormational structures 77 raw material or the computer-s logic. The computer has not ushered us into an age o in ormationH we already lived in one. .hat the computer gives us is the age o automated in ormation processin). .hile I am en3oying all the novel ways to per orm old" amiliar tasks Fsuch as e0changing messages with a riendG" it is easy to ignore how the computer insinuates new elements into the picture. It may not seem important that personal correspondence must be translated into ones and 6eros or transmission" and then translated back again 77 and or my reading o a riend-s message it really doesn-t matter. 9ut the necessity or the translation tells me something important about the nature and limitations o the computer 77 which is also to say" the nature and limitations o the <nervous system< upon which we are reconstructing society. .hen it comes to the things this nervous system can do in its own right 77 the human and social unctions we entrust to it 77 the limitations are e0actly what matter. In sumB the computer-s miming o older" simpler ways is hardly the decisive point. 'r" you might say" the mimin) itse$f is the decisive point. &one o the earlier technologies e0hibited this sort o independent" logical" imitative capacity. The computer acts in its own right" and the 5uality o its actions 77 or" rather" the strictly 5uantitative and logical basis o its actions 77 challenges us in a way that the amiliar activities it now mimes did not. To say that the message I see issuing rom my computer consists <merely o ones and 6eros< is a common misunderstanding. .hat I see are the words o my riend. The complementary 77 and ar more dangerous 77 misunderstanding occurs when I claim that the computer itsel transcends a logic o ones and 6eros. It does not. .hat the computer sees issuing rom me is information. I;I And everything it does is ounded on this kind o seeing. 1 #rea& of a!che&y The computer willingly places its mimicking intelligence at our service. All it asks o us is one small thingB that we allow it to start with in ormation or data" and to proceed rom there by means o mechani6ed logic. In working with the computer-s distinctive capabilities" we must not start with our e0perience o the world" but with < acts< con orming to a database. .e must not start with our own perception or thinking" but rather must develop tools Fas one &et voice put itG <to e0plore vast in ormation spaces in search o matching data or ob3ects< 77 the ob3ects" o course" being such things as huge arrays o searchable te0t strings. In general" we must not start with our se$ves as knowers" but only with those in ormational re7presentations o sel and world distributed throughout the &et. .hat the computer asks o us" in short" is that we trust it to pull us up along the )ata to .isdom Chain. The theorists o in ormation are more than happy to encourage us in thinking this possible. #hilosopher and cognitive scientist 2red )retsky opens his book <now$ed)e and the F$ow of %nformation with the words" <In the beginning there was in ormationH the word came later.< The hope resounding through the rhetorical atmosphere o the in ormation age is that" having submitted our lives and society to a logic o ones and 6eros" we can ascend again to meaning 77 and not only meaning" but unheard o and glorious meanings" suitable or a &ew Age o In ormation. This optimism 77 as irrepressible as it is misguided 77 inds an in inite variety o e0pressions. 2or e0ample" a message with the ollowing signature block I=I made its way into my email bo0 only a ew minutes agoB

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<The shortness o li e" the railty o reason" and the dull routine o senseless activity do not allow us to gain much knowledge" and what we do learn we all too soon orget.< F&. Copernicus" Astronomer and ScientistG <,ive me enough speed and memory" L I-ll outrun li e" out think reason" 6ap routine" gain on the brain" and orget &'&( o it.< F,reg Stewart" Computer Artist and Small 9usiness7manG I>I <,ain on the brain.< 'nce the human interior has been reimagined as brain unction" there is no di iculty in picturing the &et as a kind o e0tension o human mentality. .hat naturally ollows" as I have already suggested" is the hope o recovering the sel out on the &et. And 3ust so ar as this hope is vested in computational activity" it entails a naive aith in the computer-s ability to transmute in ormation into meaning. The modern orty7niners panning or in ormational gold are chasing a dream o logically programmed alchemy.

5ro& infor&ation to po.er ,iven the in lated e0pectations or &et7enhanced minds" one wonders where all the new Supermen are to be ound. &ot" apparently" on the &et. There" one typically encounters a culture o stunning illiteracy 77 by which I mean not only an un amiliarity with the broad literature o human understanding" but also a chronic inattention to those subtle shi ts o meaning that can radically trans orm the <bits and bytes< o any discussion. As #eter Calamai" an editor o the Ottawa Citi1en newspaper" remarked to the 1??1 International 2ree&et Con erence" The level o public discussion on the &et is appallingly shallow .... The ability to communicate instantaneously seems to discourage re lection. *ou can see how ar we have to go by looking at the minutes rom the %echanics Institutes that lourished in many 1?th century rural towns in Canada .... The level o discussion 77 the insight into the human condition" the recognition o underlying values 77 recorded in those %echanics Institutes minutes is ar more pro ound than anything I-ve yet seen on the &et. I?I #resumably those earlier generations still reali6ed that understanding is not a collection o things or <knowledge constructs"< but rather a way" a path o personal growth. It is e0perience illumined rom within by care ul" sustained re lection. It is a habit o observation and a discipline o thinking given penetrating orce by a trained imagination. I in ormation is truly something we can collect 77 gathering it to ourselves like s5uirrels hoarding acorns 77 i it can be made into a commodity with a price and sub3ected to trading in a utures pit" then it is not ood or the human spirit. .hat ennobles and gives wisdom cannot be sold" and will never yield itsel to a 9oolean search. .hat can be sold is <empowerment"< and that is the real signi icance o the passion or in ormation. .ithin a technologically in luenced culture ascinated by the means o invisibly e ective constraint" the ield o in ormation 3usti ies its advertisement in at least one regardB it readily yields to appropriate wi6ardry" congealing into instruments o power. So we encounter another paean to in ormation 77 one sung even more loudly and more insistently than the hymn o (nlightenment. The ollowing <in ormation sheet< about the respected 5uarterly 3ournal" The %nformation (ociety" o ers one o the more prosaic variations on the paean-s te0tB An <in ormation revolution< is clearly underway. The e0ponential growth in computational capability per unit dollar will continue at least or the ne0t several decades. Communication bandwidth is undergoing simultaneous e0ponential growth. Connectivity among individuals" companies and nations is orming what some are calling <worldnet<" <cyberspace<" <global grid< or <the matri0.< These combined trends are leading us into an In ormation Society in which wealth" power and reedom o action derive rom access to" and e ective use o " in ormation. .e might have thought it strange that wisdom and reedom should cohabit so easily with wealth and power upon a couch o in ormation. This is no traditional marriageD It was once claimed that <the truth will make you ree"< but surely that reedom has little to do with wealth and power 77 as little" in act" as truth has to do with in ormation. 2reedom is what took hold o Aleksandr Sol6henitsyn when he irst stepped into the ,ulag and resolved to die toward all those human ties" possessions" and interests that had ormerly engaged him" and to embrace his new li e or whatever it might o er. As bere t as anyone can be o in ormation" wealth" or power" he remained reer than his captors. Loss of the se!f 9ut none o this e0plains how in ormation and the &et lead to empowerment. .e can understand this connection only by irst appreciating a parado0B the computer-s cleanly logical necessities tend to induce sei6ures o chaotic arbitrariness. .e have" o course" already seen hints o this. The ,reat In ormation Hunt" or all the impressive rationalism o its so tware tools" stands or the scattered" distracted mind" impelled by automatic reactivity. It stands or a hal 7awake" association7based consciousness litting rom one &et link to another and dissipating mental energies in a ormless" curiosity7driven e0cursion. %ost o all" it stands or the dissolution o the sovereign sel . The e ort to recollect the sel rom the &et-s per ectly well7behaved environs results only in a urther dispersal o the sel 77 a loss o coherence.
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It is not particularly odd that this should be so. A sheen o orderly in ormation and logical discipline all too readily masks an utter irrationality. The igure o the ool in literature sometimes illustrates this well" as when he interprets conversation in an absurdly literal" yet per ectly <logical< manner. %ichael Heim is" I think" pointing in this same direction when he notes how <logic can move like a 3uggernaut adri t rom any personal engagement with its sub3ect matter. Someone with a great deal less e0perience" or e0ample" can make us eel compelled to accept a conclusion we know instinctively to be wrong.< The compelling power arises precisely rom operating in a vacuum" where everything must be 3ust so. The advantage o a vacuum is that the meanings and comple0ities o the world cannot muddy things 77 or can do so only in care ully controlled ways. <.e can be per ectly logical"< writes Heim" <yet loat completely adri t rom reality.< Heim sees this characteristic in the 9oolean operators with which we search through in ormation" si ting out <hits< by keyword. <Through minute logical apertures" we observe the world Jo in ormationK much like a robot rapidly surveying the sur ace o things. .e cover an enormous amount o material in an incredibly short time" but what we see comes through narrow thought channels.< I1AI These narrow slits present us with a collection o discrete ragments" but never with a view" nor even with ragments o the world itsel . .e receive" rather" bits o in ormational abstractionsB data" derived images" vagrant te0t wrenched ree o any speaker. This loating adri t rom reality is" I think" one o the preeminent symptoms o the in ormation age. It is possible only when we do not possess ourselves with any irmness. The glittering glass shards o in ormation can absorb my attention" drawing me this way and that" only when I lack sel 7mastery and so must attempt to recollect mysel rom the &et. 9ut the attempt inevitably ails. The &et-s distributed in ormation does not enable me to <pull mysel together"< or it provides no principle o coherence. All the intricate" in ormational linkages o cyberspace notwithstanding" an inescapable arbitrariness rules. The upshot o all this is that the clear" bracing air o a well7 delineated <in ormation space< is never wholly puri ied o its more etid and murky double. The two belong together. 'ne can" in this regard" venture a airly sa e predictionB over the coming years" ringe &et phenomena such as lame wars" weird impersonations" the more bi6arre orms o underground culture" pornographic commerce" mani estations o psychosis ... will grow increasingly pronounced and erratic" while at the same time the reasoned mechanisms or iltering <strict business< rom the more chaotic background noise o the &et will steadily gain in e ectiveness. .e have already long been witnessing a kind o rationali6ation o social processes Fbusiness" government" scienti ic research" war are" educationG against a backdrop o meaninglessness" alienation" pathology" disintegrating social ties" a permanent underclass 77 rather as science preserves an elegant" mathematically clean" probabilistic theory erected upon the dark" chaotic substrate o 5uantum randomness. 'ur ruling abstractions abandon the world to chaos in avor o <systems thinking< and schemas or the e ective manipulation o things. And the &et gives us the best opportunity yet to construct an entirely new world o sterile abstraction" superimposed upon the demons o our subconscious. And" finally" em owerment &either you nor I nor anyone in the world can e0ercise power over someone who is ully in possession o himsel . The sel 7possessed individual moves only according to his own necessities" even as he serves the needs o others. This is what we should hope to celebrateB the end o empowerment. .e do not need power" whether over others or over the world. .e need wisdom" and the ability to connect with our own destinies. I the &et empowers" it is by subverting our sel 7possession" substituting or it a compelling yet arbitrary and undamentally irrational show o logic 77 a ool-s logic 77 ultimately related to the logic that says" <buy this car because o the beauti ul woman lying on it.< To be sure" each o us recogni6es the absurdity o the logic 77 but it is e0actly this strange combination o recognition on the one hand" and submission to the absurdity on the other Fthe ads do" a ter all" workG that testi ies to the loss o sel . Television has taught us much about this loss. The interactive &et" by rendering even our conscious activity passive and automatic" promises to teach us a great deal more. The &et-s empowerment is the correlate o a dimmed consciousness" which in turn allows the outward scattering o the sel -s inner resources. 'n the one hand" the scattered sel lacks su icient presence o mind to resist the arbitrary impulses that serve powerH on the other hand" it seeks to e0ercise its own power" since the e0perience o power has always substituted easily or a genuine coming to onesel . The dimmed consciousness itsel has two sides" answering to the &et-s double potential. There is a contraction" by which we adapt our thought li e to those narrow slits" surveying the world with the cold" piercing logic o the dragon-s eye. Then there is what remains outside the circle o this contraction 77 a world o meaning unattended to" and there ore sunk into the subconscious" where it moves us according to a shadow <logic< now beyond our reach. These two aspects o the dimmed consciousness 77 a visible but creatively impotent logic" and its invisible" irrationally potent shadow 77 cooperate 5uite well in sub3ecting us to the appeal o the beauti ul woman. Cike the <clear7toned sirens< o the Odyssey" she o ers wisdom and the knowledge o <all things that come to pass upon the ruit ul earth.< I11I 'nly such a temptress could beguile us into this madly compulsive pursuit o in ormation and the technological innovation it brings" with no one stopping to ask what any o the gadgetry has to do with the ul illment o the human task.
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.arned o the sirens- threat by a goddess" 'dysseus stopped the ears o his comrades with wa0 to block out the deadly song. Then he had himsel bound to the ship-s mast" so that he could listen reely without danger o being overcome. 9y no means immune to temptation Fupon hearing the subtle harmonies" he ought iercely to be loosed rom his bondsG" he was able to prevent disaster only by virtue o this inspired orethought. Such insistence upon wake ul e0perience" combined with resolute preventive measures to compensate or personal weakness" remains the appropriate response to the seductive promise o in ormational omniscience. .e must somehow contrive the sturdy mast and the restraining ropes rom within ourselves. The discipline may be di icult" but in inding an answer to the enticing song o sel 7 e0tinction" we will have contributed ar more to society than by adding our bones to the sirens- mouldering heap on the orlorn shores o cyberspace. -eferences 1. 9enedikt" 1??1B 111. +. ,eo &unberg" language commentary or Fresh Air" &ational #ublic $adio" ; :uly 1??4. 1. This is a point Theodore $os6ak makes in The Cu$t of %nformation Fp. >G. $os6ak-s book contains a valuable treatment o the <cult< rom many di erent angles. 4. I discuss this matter more e0tensively in chapter +1" <Can .e Transcend Computation?< 8. Puoted in Calamai" 1??1. ;. According to the theory o in ormation" athered by Claude Shannon in the 1?4As" the amount o in ormation in a message is a measure o the message-s <statistical une0pectedness.< Cincoln-s ,ettysburg address might have e0actly the same 5uantity o in ormation as a ew statements o arithmetic addition or subtraction. In its standard orm" the theory makes no claim to reckon with content as meaning. This is per ectly legitimate. The problem occurs" as I suggest in chapter +1" when the attempt is made to leap upward rom the mathematical treatment o in ormation Ftaken as the more undamental levelG to meaning. =. It is part o &et culture to include 5uotations or other te0t" along with the sender-s name and identi ying in ormation" at the end o messages. This concluding section o the message is called the si)nature +$oc'" or the 2si). >. !sed by permission o ,reg Stewart FoveryouredNaol.comG. ?. Calamai" 1??1. 1A. Heim" 1??1B +A" ++. 11. Homer Odyssey" 1+.1>47?1. And the Word )ecame $echanical 'n a black night in the early 1?>As" a ierce scream congealed the darkness deep within %IT-s Arti icial Intelligence Caboratory. The late7working engineer who went to investigate discovered $ichard Stallman 77 one o the nation-s most brilliant programmers 77 sitting in tears and screaming at his computer terminal" <How can you do this? How can you do this? How can you do this5< I1I The image is no doubt provocative" revealing as it does a striking urge to personi y the computer. And yet" perhaps we make too much o such occurrences. A ter all" the computer is hardly uni5ue in this respect. )on-t I curse the door that 3ams" implore my car-s engine to start on an icy morning" and kick a mal unctioning T@ with more than 3ust mechanical intent? The act is that we mani est a strong tendency to personi y all the contrivances o our own devising. The computer simply takes its place among the numerous other ob3ects to which" with a kind o animistic impulse" we attribute li e. This may be the point worth holding on to" however. 'nce we acknowledge our anthropomorphi6ing compulsions" we must immediately grant that the computer is ideally designed to provoke them. .hatever our considered" philosophical understanding o the computer and its intelligence" we also need to reckon with this <animistic< tendency 77 at least we do i we seek sel 7knowledge" and i we would prevent our own subconscious impulses rom in ecting our philosophical in5uiries. The e&2o#i&ent of inte!!igence Anyone can write a program causing a computer to display stored te0t and stored images on a screen. So" at a bare minimum" a computer can do anything a book can do 77 it can present us with a physics te0tbook" provide road maps" entertain us with stories"
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e0hibit art reproductions" and so on. It-s true that ew o us would choose to read *ar and Peace on our terminal screens. &evertheless" much o what we e0perience rom a computer" ranging rom the individual words and icons that label a screen window" to the content o email messages" to the te0t o Shakespeare" is in act the computer-s <book< nature 77 that is" its relatively passive ability to display stored te0t. The only intelligence here is the same" derivative intelligence that books may be said to possess. Cacking any better term" I will call this wholly derivative intelligence o the computer its +oo' va$ue. However" the notion e0tends to other sorts o stored material in the computer besides te0t 77 or e0ample" voice recordings and video images. :ust as a book displays <someone else-s< intelligence and not its own" so also do the tape recorder and television. In what ollows" I-ll use <book value< to include all such derived content. &o one would claim that its book value represents what the computer itsel does. Those who talk about how computers will be able to think and converse are not merely re erring to the way tape recorders and books <speak.< They have in mind an autonomous activity o the computer 77 an activity directly e0pressing intelligence. So I will use these terms 77 <book value< and <activity< 77 as rough markers capturing the distinction I-m a ter. .hile I have had" and will have" a great deal to say about the logical or mathematical character o computational activity" here I propose to look at certain peculiarities o book value in our culture. It is a curious act that" today" book value 77 the detached word 77 readily takes on a li e o its own" whether or not it is associated with the computer. At the same time" we seem strongly inclined to adopt an anthropomorphi6ing or superstitious stance toward this detached word. >etting co&p ters to thin% the easy .ay Several years back I spent some time monitoring the !S(&(T newsgroups dealing with arti icial intelligence FAIG. %ost o those who participated in the discussions were engineers or academics pursuing pro essional work in AI. 'ne contributor described his undertaking this wayB I am currently writing a program that allows the user to build a network consisting o thoughts and relations. The user starts by building a thought node. (ach thought node contains a pointer to a list o relation nodes. (ach relation node contains a pointer to another thought node. (very time a new thought is created" a relation node is added to the relation list o the current thought.... .hat are we to make o this language? A ew innocent7sounding sentences and suddenly we have a computer dealing with <thoughts< and relations 77 all in the conte0t o discussion about arti icial intelligenceD 'ne easily overlooks the act that the speaker is apparently talking about nothing more than a tool or creating a cross7re erenced outline or network diagram. The computer itsel is no more dealing in thoughts than does a typewriter. )espite his loose language" this contributor may 3ust conceivably have had properly humble intentions when he submitted his ideas or consideration. The same cannot be said or the writer who in ormed his colleagues that he had hit upon 3ust the ticket or giving computers ree will. It re5uires that we write a program or a <decision system with three agents<B The irst agent generates a candidate list o possible courses o action open or consideration. The second agent evaluates the likely outcome o pursuing each possible course o action" and estimates its utility according to its value system. The third agent provides a coin7toss to resolve ties. 2eedback rom the real world enables the system to improve its powers o prediction and to edit its value system. So much or ree will. So much or the problem o values 77 <ought< versus <is.< So much or the 5uestion o who these <agents< are that consider possible courses o action" understand likely outcomes" and apply values. It is all beauti ully simple. This same contributor rebuts the notion that computers cannot e0perience eelings. His appeal is to diagnostic messages 77 the words o advice or warning that programmers instruct the computer to print out when" or e0ample" a user types something incorrectly. A diagnostic message is a orm o emotional e0pression. The computer is saying" <Something-s wrong. I-m stuck and I don-t know what to do.< And sure enough" the computer doesn-t do what you had in mind. 'ne wondersB are we up against an e0citing new understanding o the human mind here" or an animistic impulse o stunning orce? )o we con ront theory or superstition? The !S(&(T discussions in which such observations as these are launched continue month a ter month in all seriousness. The messages I have cited here were selected rom hundreds o similar ones. .e might hope that this is no more than the all7too7 re5uent descent o electronic discussion groups to a lowest common denominator. 9ut there is evidence that the problem goes ar beyond that. *at ra! ignorance #ro essor )rew %c)ermott" himsel an AI researcher" published an essay in 1?>1 entitled <Arti icial Intelligence %eets &atural Stupidity.< In it he remarked on the use pro essional researchers make o <wish ul mnemonics< like !&)($STA&) or ,'AC in re erring to programs and data structures. He wondered how we would view these same structures i we instead used names like ,AA14. The programmer could then <see whether he can convince himsel or anyone else that ,AA14 implements some part o
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understanding.< In a similar vein" he describes one o the early landmark AI programsB <9y now" M,#S- is a colorless term denoting a particularly stupid program to solve pu66les. 9ut it originally meant M,eneral #roblem Solver-" which caused everybody a lot o needless e0citement and distraction. It should have been called C2,&S 77 MCocal72eature7,uided &etwork Searcher.-< He goes on to say" As AI progresses Fat least in terms o money spentG" this malady gets worse. .e have lived so long with the conviction that robots are possible" even 3ust around the corner" that we can-t help hastening their arrival with magic incantations. .inograd ... e0plored some o the comple0ity o language in sophisticated detailH and now everyone takes Mnatural7language inter aces- or granted" though none has been written. Charniak ... pointed out some approaches to understanding stories" and now the '.C interpreter includes a Mstory7 understanding module-. FAnd" ,od help us" a top7 level Mego loop.-G I+I I once sat in a con erence where the head o a university computer science department was asked how a computer could possess a sel hood and a knowledge o itsel . He immmediately replied that it is easy enough to create a program variable giving the computer a name or itsel " and to cause the computer to associate the record o its past activity with this name. Thus" <since Jthe computer programK has a term or itsel " it can remember what it did" and can tell you what it has thought about.< So much or the nature o memory" personal e0perience" and sel hood. These stories show that it is not only casual users who are liable to mistake book value or what the computer itsel does or understands. I a word lashing on the screen suggests to our cooperating minds a native intelligence within the machine" sophisticated engineers appear similarly susceptible to the name o a variable in a program listing. 'ne is reminded o the word-s power ul evocations during ancient times. As we are o ten told" our ancestors did not always distinguish clearly between word and thing. The word bore within itsel some o the inner" spiritual signi icance o the thing to which it re erred. 9ut this only makes our own behavior all the more pu66ling" or we are certainly inclined to re3ect what we take to be the superstitions o the ancients. And we do not believe 77 or at least we say we do not believe 77 our machines to be possessed by spirits. .hat" then" can we make o a technically trained person who casually attributes thoughts and eelings to a computer on the basis o its diagnostic messages? Has he become pathologically superstitious about machines" or has he instead become pathologically separated rom his own world o thoughts and eelings" which he reduces to a collection o vague abstractions o the sort he can easily attribute to a computer? 'r are these two sides o the same phenomenon? Co&p teri:e# therapy 'ne o the classic" i now hackneyed" episodes in early AI work occurred in the mid71?;As" when #ro essor :oseph .ei6enbaum o %IT wrote a language analysis program called (CIRA. He initially designed the program to imitate a $ogerian psychotherapist 77 a relatively easy task" he tells us" because much o the therapist-s techni5ue <consists o drawing his patient out by re lecting the patient-s statements back to him.< In (CIRA-s case" the patient would type comments on a typewriter" and the computer would respond in kind. 'ne conversation between (CIRA and a young lady went like this F(CIRA-s responses are in capital lettersGB %en are all alike. I& .HAT .A* They-re always bugging us about something or other. CA& *'! THI&E '2 A S#(CI2IC (QA%#C( .ell" my boy riend made me come here. *'!$ 9'*2$I(&) %A)( *'! C'%( H($( He says I-m depressed much o the time. I A% S'$$* T' H(A$ *'! A$( )(#$(SS() It-s true. I am unhappy. )' *'! THI&E C'%I&, H($( .ICC H(C# *'! &'T T' 9( !&HA##* I need some help" that much seems certain. .HAT .'!C) IT %(A& T' *'! I2 *'! ,'T S'%( H(C# #erhaps I could learn to get along with my mother.
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T(CC %( %'$( A9'!T *'!$ 2A%IC* %y mother takes care o me .H' (CS( I& *'!$ 2A%IC* TAE(S CA$( '2 *'! %y ather. *'!$ 2ATH($ *ou are like my ather in some ways. .HAT $(S(%9CA&C( )' *'! S(( *ou are not very aggressive but I think you don-t want me to notice that. .HAT %AE( *'! THI&E I A% &'T @($* A,,$(SSI@( *ou don-t argue with me .H* )' *'! THI&E I )'&-T A$,!( .ITH *'! *ou are a raid o me. )'(S IT #C(AS( *'! T' 9(CI(@( I A% A2$AI) '2 *'! %y ather is a raid o everybody .HAT (CS( C'%(S T' %I&) .H(& *'! THI&E '2 *'!$ 2ATH($ 9ullies. )'(S THAT HA@( A&*THI&, T' )' .ITH TH( 2ACT THAT *'!$ 9'*2$I(&) %A)( *'! C'%( H($( As .ei6enbaum points out" the computer-s language analysis was very primitive. Its programming re lected a single conte0t 77 that o the therapeutic dialog 77 and its <understanding< consisted substantially o keying in on certain words and drawing on a set o stock responses. F' course" it also had to do some basic grammatical parsing o (nglish te0t.G &evertheless" .ei6enbaum reports on the <shock< he e0perienced upon learning how seriously people took the programB 'nce my secretary" who had watched me work on the program or many months and there ore surely knew it to be merely a computer program" started conversing with it. A ter only a ew interchanges with it" she asked me to leave the room. Another time" I suggested I might rig the system so that I could e0amine all conversations anyone had with it" say" overnight. I was promptly bombarded with accusations that what I proposed amounted to spying on people-s intimate thoughts .... I knew o course that people orm all sorts o emotional bonds to machines .... .hat I had not reali6ed is that e0tremely short e0posures to a relatively simple computer program could induce power ul delusional thinking in 5uite normal people. I1I There is a sense in which we must agree with .ei6enbaum 77 a sense that is central to my own argument. *et I suspect he would acknowledge another side to the issue. How delusional is it to assume an intelligence behind the use o language? Canguage" as we all learn in school" is one o the chie distinguishing eatures o man. .e simply never come across language that has not issued" in one way or another" rom a human mind. I I ind a series o words neatly impressed upon the sand o a desert island" I will conclude 77 no doubt correctly 77 that I am not alone. There is another human speaker on the island. 2urthermore" we have become ully attuned to mechanically mediated human communication. .hile telephone" radio" or T@ might hopelessly disorient a time7traveling $oman" we take it as a matter o course that these devices put us in touch with other people. .ei6enbaum-s secretary" 5uite undistracted by the mechanical contrivances she was dealing with" immersed hersel rom habit in the meaning o the te0t addressed to her" and she elt Fwith good 3usti icationG that this te0t originated in another mind" one that had considered how to respond to 9ust the sorts of comments she was ma'in)2 .hat she was most likely not doing was considering e0plicitly whether she was speaking with the computer itsel " or a programmer" or some other person. She was simply conversin) with words2 .ho was behind them didn-t matter. The episode may say more about the pervasive and accustomed anonymity o our society than anything else.
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"or#s in the voi# The word has increasingly detached itsel rom the human being who utters it. This detachment received a huge impetus with the invention o the modern printing press in the i teenth century. The phonograph" telephone" radio" and T@ encouraged an ever more radical separation. Today" even in live musical per ormances" lip7synching is common 77 who knows whether it is a recording or a human laryn0 rom which the sound arises? FActually" with or without lip7synching" the immediate source o the sound is a loudspeaker rather than a laryn0" which is why the controversy over lip7synching is mostly irrelevant.G I a phone connection puts me at one mechanical remove rom my conversational partner" a recorded phone message more than doubles the indirection" or here there is no possibility o interaction. 9ut" no" that-s not 5uite true. As phone systems become ever more sophisticated" I am allowed to push buttons in an increasingly articulate manner. At the same time" the spliced7together snippets o recorded speech manage to respond in an increasingly intelligent manner. And" like .ei6enbaum-s secretary" I ollow along with all the seriousness o someone conversing with a real person" even i I am more or less aware o the arrangement-s limitations. This awareness will no doubt attenuate with time" even as the mechanical devices gain in de tness. %any in our society have only recently e0perienced the shock that comes when one irst reali6es that the <person< who rang the phone is really a recording. 9ut those among us who are already accustomed to recordings will readily acknowledge a certain process o acclimati6ationB as the collage o recorded and <real< voices becomes more and more intricate" and as the underlying programming responds more and more le0ibly to our needs" we make less and less o a distinction between the various levels o genuineness. .e are com ortable doing business with the words themselves. The Syste& spea%s .e have" it seems" long been training ourselves to disregard the distance between the verbal arti acts o intelligence and their living source. The words themselves are source enough. Cittle o the day goes by without our being assaulted on one side or another by disembodied words speaking or we know not whom. Street signs" billboards" car radios" .alkmans" newspapers" maga6ines by the grocery checkout stand" televisions in every room" phone callers we have never met" movies" video games" loudspeakers at public gatherings" and 77 i we work with computers 77 a &oachian deluge o electronic mail" news" network7accessible databases" and all the other hidden vessels o the information that is supposed to empower and liberate us. .e live out much o our lives under the guidance o these words7as7 arti acts. How can we do otherwise? How can I pierce behind the intricate mechanism mediating the words I hear" so as to discern the true spea'er? How can I discover more than a ew ragments o the individuality o #eter :ennings or Tom 9rokaw behind the ormulas and technology o the evening news? FThink how di erent it would be to watch and listen as the cameras inadvertently picked up a hal 7hour-s o 7the7air conversation between 9rokaw and one o his colleagues. And how di erent again to participate in a ace7to7 ace e0change with them.G .e are so used to words that have become disconnected rom their human source that we scarcely notice the peculiarities o our situation. 9ut we do notice on at least some occasions" as the un lattering stereotype o the bureaucrat makes clear. .hen I 5uibble with a disen ranchised clerk over some irrelevant regulation" with whom am I speaking? &ot the clerk himsel " or he has no authority to speak on his own account. FThat is probably the main cause o my rustrationH I thou)ht I was going to converse with a person.G 9ut i my conversation is not with the clerk" who is it with? &obody" really 77 which is why I 5uickly begin to blame the System. The act is that" like .ei6enbaum-s secretary" I am merely conversin) with words" and these words are produced by a vague mechanism neither I nor anyone else can ully unravel. *es" the words somehow originate with human beings" but they have been sub3ected to a kind o organi6ationalImechanical processing that renders them simplistic" too7logical" slightly out o kilter. They are impossible to trace" and so I don-t try. .hy try? It is the disembodied words that determine my ate. They are the reality. 'ne way to think o the challenge or our uture is thisB how can I work toward a society in which every transaction is as deeply human a transaction as possible? To make an e0change human is to reduce the distance between words and their source" to overcome the entire mediating apparatus" so that I am mysel ully present in my words. (ven when stymied by a bureaucracy" I can at least choose to address Fand respectG the human being in ront o me. This will" in act" encourage him to step out o the System in some small way rather than retreat urther into it as a de ense against my anger. 'n the other hand" I support the System 3ust so ar as I give urther impetus to the automated word. S perstition I began this chapter by asking what stands behind our <animistic< urge to personi y mechanical devices. I then distinguished between the +oo' va$ue o the computer and its native activity2 The remainder o the chapter to this point has ocused upon book valueB the ease with which both user and programmer attribute book value to the computer as i it were an e0pression o the computer-s own active intelligence" and the degree to which the word has detached itsel rom human beings and taken up an ob3ective" independent li e within our machines" organi6ations" and systems. There may appear to be a parado0 here. 'n the one hand" the increasing ob3ecti ication o what is most intimately human 77 our speechH on the other hand" an anthropomorphi6ing liaison with our mechanical contrivances. 9ut" o course" this is not really a
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parado0. .hen speech detaches itsel rom the speaker" it is indeed ob3ecti ied" cut o rom its human source. 9ut it still carries 77 i only via our subconscious 77 some o its ancient and living powers. And so its association with machinery readily evokes our personi ication o the machinery. .e may think ourselves reed rom superstition. 9ut i we take superstition to be a susceptibility to the magical e ects o words" then it would be truer to say that ours is the age in which superstition has come into its own. Having reduced the word to a dead abstraction residing outside ourselves" we sub3ect ourselves to its invisible in luence. 'ur single largest industry" centered on %adison Avenue Fbut also operative in every corporate %arketing )epartmentG is dedicated to re ining the instruments o magical control. (eemin) to be alien" a hollow physical token and nothing more" approaching us only as a powerless shape rom without" the word nevertheless has its way with us. .e detach the word rom ourselves and it overpowers us rom the world. &or is it an accident that the great social and political ideologies have arisen only during the last couple o centuries. These elaborate word7edi ices" detached rom their human sources" sway and mobili6e the surging masses. The passionate believer in an /ism 77 what is it he believes in? An idea rom which all human meaning has been purged" leaving only an abstraction and the controlling passion o belie itsel . That is what makes the ghastly" inhuman contradictions possibleB a communist workers- paradise to be achieved by dis ranchising or massacring the workersH a capitalist common good to be achieved through the universal cultivation o sel ishness. Religion and ideology $eligion" too" has doubtless taken on a more ideological character over the last ew centuries 77 as suggested" or e0ample" by sectarian ragmentation. 9ut the more <primitive< phases o religion contrast strikingly with the genesis o modern /isms. The prophets spoke in similes" images" koans" symbols" and parablesH their words were accessible only to those <with ears to hear.< The words had to be meditated upon" slowly penetrated by means o an answering word within the hearer. And the believer was ever driven back to the human source or understandingH the words o the prophet were inseparable rom his li e. They were not written on the subway walls" nor on religious billboards. It is 5uite otherwise with ideology. 2or Communist revolutionaries around the world" not much depended on the person o %ar0 or Cenin" or on the authenticity o words attributed to them. 2aith was vested in empty generalities 77 the proletariat" the revolution" the classless society. .ords that change the course o the world are no longer bound to their human source. !nlike the symbol and parable 77 and much more like scienti ic descriptions 77 they have become abstract and capable o standing by themselves" or they are nearly contentless. They are automatic 77 it to be spoken by the System 77 and there ore the human subconscious rom which the System has arisen is invited to supply the real meaning. Some people believe we have seen the end o ideology. %y own ear is that we are seeing its per ection. The disembodied word no longer re5uires even the relatively impersonal support o the activist-s cell" the political movement" the aceless bureaucracy" the machinelike corporation" the television evangelistic campaign. The machine itsel " uncannily mimicking the human being" now bears the word alone 77 and we call it in ormation. 'ur /ism is declared in our almost religious devotion to a li e determined" not rom within ourselves" but by divine technological whim. It is easy enough to see a danger in the reaction o .ei6enbaum-s secretary to (CIRA. 2or despite it being an understanda+$e reaction in view o our culture-s detachment o the word" it is clearly not a hea$thy reaction. She evidently proved blind to the laughable limitation o her therapist and the essential arti iciality o the e0ercise" because she could not distinguish properly among book value" mechanical activity" and human presence. And having lost her ability to trace word to speaker" she must have lost as well some o her ability to deal truly with human beings in generalH or the human being as productive spirit" as the source o the word" had at least temporarily escaped her reckoning. .e may scorn her or that" but it would not be wise. 9etter to note that the test she ailed becomes daily more subtle" and that the rest o us" too 77 whether in passively absorbing television commercials" or beating our heads against petty bureaucracies" or allowing electronic mail to put us into <automatic mode< 77 ail it every day. -eferences 1. Cobb" 1??A. +. %c)ermott" 1?>1B 14874;. 1. .ei6enbaum" 1?=;B 174. *istening for the Silence The notorious sloppiness o computer7mediated communication is o ten attributed to its being more like conversational speech than like traditional writing. The idea seems to be that sloppiness works ine in conversation" so why shouldn-t it work 3ust as well in online communication? 9ut perhaps the premise here sneaks within the gates 3ust a bit too easily.
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There are several elements o e ective conversationB #he ability to listen I mean an active sort o listening 77 the kind that enables and encourages" eliciting rom the speaker an even better statement than he knew he was capable o producing. The kind that enters sympathetically into the gaps" the hesitations" the things le t unsaid" so that the listener can state the speaker-s position as e ectively as his own. To listen productively is to nurture a receptive and energetic void within which a new word can take shape. Such listening is hal o every good conversation" perhaps the most creative hal . &eedless to say" listening e0presses a deep sel lessness. And" i my own e0perience is any guide" the discipline re5uired is ar rom natural. In act" it usually seems impossible. 9ut this does not prevent our working toward it" as toward any ideal. .hat about computer7mediated communication? Clearly" listening is still more di icult here. The speaker is no longer physically present. He no longer demands so insistently that I attend to his words" nor is my listening immediately evident to him. I I wish" I can more easily conceal my disinterest. However" the situation is not hopeless. (ven in ace7to7 ace communication I must <overcome< the physically detached word i I would ind my way to the mind o the speaker. So it-s not as i the computer con ronts me with an altogether new challenge. It-s 3ust that I must make a more conscious e ort o attention" actively seeking out the speaker behind the words on my screen. .hen I do this well" my response can still convey a 5uality o listening. Cistening is in any case more than a mere visible blankness. It is a receptive participation that colors all aspects o the conversation. Silence Silence is implied in listening" but also in speaking. It is the place where the right words can come together. .ithout silence" the torrent o words becomes coercive or both speaker and listener. The words are automatic" unconsidered" e0pressing thoughts and eelings the speaker himsel is not ully aware o . They run in ruts" responding in the same old ways to the same old triggering remarks. Silence is the dark soil through which the seedleaves o a new understanding may push through to the light. Silence is essential to the proper management o a conversation. 'nly when I am silent can another contribute in a balancing way. 'nly when the whole group regularly punctuates its discourse with silences is there a chance or the conversation to be ormed consciously as a communal work o art instead o running on wildly under its own power. How does an electronic discussion group incorporate a discipline o silence? I-m not sure to what e0tent it is possible. 9ut each contributor can at least e0ercise such a discipline within himsel " weighing each remark be ore submitting it. The amiliar advice about writing a response" then waiting a day be ore mailing it" is o ten appropriate. So" too" one can give place to silence in contemplating the shape o the conversation as a whole 77 as one would a painting be ore adding a new stroke. Admittedly" online discussions are so o ten utterly random and shapeless that it hardly seems worth the e ort. This is not surprising" since creative silence is a rare thing even in our deeply personal conversations. &evertheless" there is a goal we can work toward here. Res ect for the word The word is the instrument o our meanin)s. 'nly with words can a human being mean something. In this sense" every meaning7 gesture is a <word.< There is no activity we can properly call human that is not a kind o speaking 77 whether it occurs in a conversation" on a ballet stage" or in a sports stadium. 'ur ability to convey meaning depends on two things. .e need an established" shared vocabulary o some sort. And we need to employ that vocabulary in a distinctive way" impressing our meanings 77 which is to say" ourselves 77 upon it. To whatever e0tent this latter e ort is super luous" we are passing along empty in ormation.< I1I 2or meanings are not simply given in our words" as i those words were containersH meaning arises dynamically in the gaps between the words 77 but does so in part because o the particular words we have used. That is why machine translation only works Fto some e0tentG with highly ormali6ed Fthat is" relatively emptyG vocabularies typical o certain sciences and scholarly disciplines. Such languages are designed to eliminate all meaning" to s5uee6e out every contaminant that might in ect the spaces between the words. Computers" so ar as they act in their own right" are e0changers o in ormation" not meaning. They do not learn rom the gaps between words. So there is no need or a computer to apply the disciplines o listening and silence. There is nothing to listen or" no human meaning to take orm in the silences. The transactions are automatic" given solely by what is <contained in< the words 77 which is a purely ormal emptiness. As we embrace the age o in ormation and all the tools or processing in ormation" it is well to keep askingB where in all this is the listening? .here is the silence and the meaning? In all the discussion o in ormation" one rarely hears a clear distinction articulated between automatic processing and human conversation. The distinction matters.

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Attention to the larger human conte1t Conversing is the way we are human. .e are not machines e0changing dataH rather" we should e0pect that our every meeting is atedH that the way we handle ourselves may help someone else along the way" or else cause him to stumbleH that we have something important to learn rom the encounter 77 all the more so i we ind ourselves irritated" angry" or otherwise derailed rom constructive response. 'nline lame wars have attracted much attention" leading some to ask whether electronic communication encourages undue emotional outbursts. The 5uestion is worth asking" but I wonder whether the more dangerous symptoms lie at the other end o the spectrum. Anger is at least an indication that there is something persona$ at stake" even i we are not ully conscious o it. .hat i we lose the personal altogether? 'ne can imagine businesslike networks o communication that verge increasingly upon the <ideal< o pure" automatic in ormation e0change. 'ne might even suspect that this is the re5uired direction o movement" since" or reasons o e iciency" we must trans er responsibility or more and more o our business communication to so tware. .e who must merge our own e orts with those o our machines cannot help eeling ourselves pulled toward the machines. How do we pay attention to the person on the other end when it-s unclear who that person is 77 i he is anyone at all 77 amid the mechanisms? To respond to a system as i it were a person becomes downright silly. F)o I apologi6e to the so tware or my mistakes?G .e can" however" read every system as the human e0pression that it ultimately is" and then act accordingly. This could mean re using to reply to a computeri6ed suite o telephone recordings" opting instead or the human speaker. It could mean recogni6ing that a particular computer7 based system e0presses so undamental a denial o the human being that the only acceptable response is to unplug one-s connection 77 or even to carry out some strategy o <technological disobedience.< I am not being acetious here. Any such reactions will necessarily be highly personal 77 which is not another way o saying they are unimportant. Puite the contraryH rom the sum total o such reactions we will determine the uture shape o technological society. And the more radical responses at least have this meritB they take the system serious$y" rather as we must take people seriously. These responses are vivid testimony to the presence o a human being at some point in the system. 'ur need or such reminders may become acute. 5i!tering o t the h &an 2eing Such" then" are a ew eatures o conversationB listening" silence" respect or the words that make communication possible" and attention to the larger human conte0t o all meaning ul communication. ' course" the contrast between <good practice< and reality can be pain ul. I have lately been asking mysel about the e ects o the peculiar scannin) mode I ind mysel reverting to when perusing a much7too7 ull electronic mailbo0 or discussion older. &ot only is it uncom ortable to eyes and head" but it reminds me o the state I can all into when listening to a rather dull lectureB I drowsily ollow the words and phrases at a certain super icial level Fso that I would immediately perk up i the lecturer inter3ected a wholly absurd sentenceG" and yet engage in no creative interaction with the speaker-s meanin) at all. I 3ust track along with the sur aces o the words 77 behaving rather like an electronic search tool" paying attention to mere word se5uences rather than meanings. Can I even make it an idea$ to listen attentively when" as happens so o ten" I must si t through masses o hal 7considered words on my computer screen 77 many o them uninvited" o little interest" and rom unknown sources? 2ull attention would sap my energies and prevent <getting the 3ob done.< And yet" this habit pretty well encompasses a denial o every principle discussed above. To receive any language this super icially damages us" I suspect. #enetrating the thought o another re5uires an active ability to recreate within one-s own consciousness the inner li e o the other. It-s an ability implying the utmost in attention and conscious e ort" and can only be learned over a li etime. (very time I attend to someone-s words in a merely mechanical ashion" I degrade what is most ully human in both o us. Could it be that the <necessity< I eel or super icial scanning tells me something important about what I have allowed my 3ob to become? Isn-t it really under my control? .hy do I call down upon mysel so much <hal 7important< material" i not to satis y some sort o pro itless in ormation greed? These 5uestions lead directly to one o today-s hottest topics on the &etB in ormation iltering. !ading conversations The in ormation glut is not new. Cong be ore the &et-s burgeoning it was impossible to keep up with more than a tiny raction o the 3ournals" books" con erences" and discussions bearing on one-s pro essional ield" let alone those relating to avocational interests. &o one with any sense tried to take in everythin)" or that could lead only to the intellectual shallows. 2ar more important was deep interaction with those colleagues one did encounter in person or in writing. &ow" however" there is almost a ren6y o concern or < iltering.< So tware tools or selecting" categori6ing" iling" and analy6ing in ormation 77 and even or responding automatically to personal messages 77 are under intense development. A primary reason or this" 5uite evidently" is that computers give us our irst automatic scanning and processing abilities. Somehow it seems that we can <get at< much more in ormation than we could in the old7 ashioned library.

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This is no doubt true in some sense. 9ut two cautions seem necessary. 2irst" no more today than yesterday does breadth o ac5uaintance substitute or depth o contemplation 77 even i the available tools make the temptation to spread wide almost irresistible. And second" we need to reali6e the subtle nudges these new in ormation7processing tools administer to us. :ust considerB in conversation with a riend or colleague you would most de initely not apply a rigidly pre7set ilter to his remarks 77 not" at least" i you were interested in learning rom him rather than imposing your biases upon him. Tools or iltering make it clear that human e0change is becoming less conversational. The human conte0t o the word is ever less important" which is to say that what the words mean is de ined within a relative vacuum. This necessarily leads to our taking them more abstractly" or concreteness derives rom a particular human milieu. .ithout such a milieu" we can only talk about what the words might mean <in general.< Hal o every conversation consists o what meets me unpredictably rom the other side. Hal o learning is achieved by the world" working upon me at its own initiative. The aim o the ilter is" at one level" to eliminate unpredictability 77 to select my <input< according to criteria % can ully control. ' course" it-s also true in direct conversation that I can choose my partners" but certain human constraints prevent my simply walking away as soon as a <wrong< turn is taken or one o my < ilter this out< keywords is spoken. I have to deal with the person" whose presence alone grants him a certain claim upon me. The rightening prospect is that cyberspace will ade into a mere dis3unction o sub3ective universes as each o us encases himsel within a solipsistic cocoon. The parado0 here is that reduction o knowledge to <ob3ective< in ormation is precisely what prepares the way or this triumph o sub3ectivity. 9ut" then" in all things a perverse sub3ectivity is the unavoidable correlate o a perverse ob3ectivity. Am I advising you to avoid all use o so tware ilters? &o. The only thing I would state in such absolute terms is the most general principleB we must do whatever we ind necessary to preserve our ullest humanity in the presence o our machines. 9ut it does seem to me that the comparison between online communication and conversation proves use ul in ocusing our thinking about the choices. Certainly it is true 77 to retrieve our starting point 77 that i we take the re5uirements or conversation seriously" then the demands placed upon us by the <orality< o computer7mediated communication are at least as stringent as the demands embodied in traditional standards o writing" even i they are somewhat di erent. -eferences 1. See chapter +1" <Can .e Transcend Computation?< Awaking from the -rimordial &ream

The who$e wor$d reaches in man its own consciousness2 7,oethe Carl :ung" ga6ing upon a timeless A rican landscape" ound himsel momentarily absorbed" dreamlike" into a world not yet ully awakeB 2rom a low hill in the Athi plains o (ast A rica I once watched the vast herds o wild animals gra6ing in soundless stillness" as they had done rom time immemorial" touched only by the breath o a primeval world. I elt then as i I were the irst man" the irst creature" to know that all this is. The entire world around me was still in its primeval stateH it did not know that it was. And then" in that one moment in which I came to know" the world sprang into being. I1I I imagine most o us have had some such e0perience" at least to the e0tent o inding ourselves lost in the hypnotic scene be ore us as in a reverie. .e ind ourselves enmeshed" or <caught up"< in the world. 'ur minds seep outward into our surroundings" so that we no longer stand apart rom the tableau we contemplate. The psyche" having momentarily escaped the sel -s constraining will" lives outside the sel . 'nce that loss o boundary occurs" it re5uires a certain inner wrench" or pulling away" to e0tract FrecollectG ourselves rom the world. 'nly then do we regain our previous separate e0istence. In :ung-s case the wrench was also a moment o revelation. He not only recollected himsel " but he was struck by the nature o the transition. He knew he had e0perienced two radically di erent relationships to the world" and in moving rom one state to the other he elt that not only he" but also the world itsel " had changed. Something in the world depended on the birth o awareness in him. It was not only he who had <come to himsel "< but the world had come to itsel through him. Living in a #rea&

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*ou may well ask" <.hat e0actly was this change o awareness :ung describes? Surely he maintained ull awareness o the world even during his reverie. He was" a ter all" conscious throughout" and his senses were registering the scene. His ability to describe the episode in retrospect proves as much.< There are" however" di ering levels o awareness. .hen I awake in the morning" I may recall my dreams 77 proving that I e0perienced them with some sort o consciousness 77 but I nevertheless wake up to a sharper awareness. %y dream consciousness" however power ul its eelings" is in some regards duller" less ocused than my waking consciousness. It lacks conceptual clarity. And above all" it is less aware o itsel . In the hierarchy o awarenesses" each higher state may <know"< or be awake to" the lower ones" while the lower ones remain asleep with respect to the higher. 2reud could only have written his %nterpretation of Dreams while wide awake. :ung spoke o that one moment in which % came to 'now2 This knowing is not" in the irst place" a matter o gaining additional acts. The spellbound :ung could not <know< any acts at all. His consciousness was temporarily dispersed in his environment" without awareness o sel H his coming to himsel was a return to a more centered awareness. Such a centering must precede the apprehension o act. There are in inite gradations o consciousness. .e can demarcate a <lower< end o the spectrum by imagining the wholly dreamlike" instinctual consciousness o animals. The ga6elle and lion upon which :ung ga6ed" and the eagle circling overhead" do not ever <come to themselves.< They may see with eyes ar sharper than our own" distinguish smells we will never know" and give ear to distant chords hidden in our silences. *et" while they live in these e0periences" they do not apprehend them. They glide through the primeval landscape in a dream. Ancient man 77 myth7making man 77 long retained elements o a dreaming consciousness" and was incapable o anything like what we would call sel 7re lection. It is all too easy" in considering the culture o earlier periods" to mistake such a di erent orm o consciousness or a mere di erence in in ormation or actual understanding. The ancients" on such a view" simply had not learned what we have learned. 9ut this is a serious error. .e run up against this error when we contemplate some o the wonders and mysteries o the prehistoric races. .e look" or e0ample" at the ruins o certain stone monuments 77 observatories marvelously calculated to mark the waystations o sun and moon. It is possible to deduce rom these relics 3ust what the ancients must have known o astronomy and mathematics" and the answer sometimes stuns us. 2or it appears they possessed skills that even a trained astronomer today would be hard put to duplicate without her computer7generated charts and electronic calculator. 9ut all this is to assume that these earlier peoples possessed a consciousness much like our own" and e0ecuted their designs with a kind o scienti ic awareness. It is risky" however" to carry such reasoning too ar. A ter all" what must the migrating tern or the spawning salmon <know< in order to navigate thousands o miles with the precision o an IC9%? This" too" we can deduce" and it turns out they must know a great deal o astronomy" geophysics" and mathematics 77 i indeed they approach their task with an engineer-s consciousness. 9ut" o course" they do not. Enowledge o acts is not the only knowing. It is rather as i the arctic tern takes wing upon an ethereal sea o wisdom" borne along invisible paths by an intelligence calling as much rom &ature as rom within its own mind. In its dream" more pro ound than any man-s" it achieves harmony with the world" +ecause its course is as much the wor$d4s as its own2 So we may speak less accurately o the migrating bird-s intelligence than o a larger" more di use wisdom comprehending the bird and drawing it along. (ven in our own dreams" we cannot clearly distinguish sel rom world. The elements o the dream scenario tend to represent" in one way or another" aspects o ourselvesH our inner li e is <spread around"< displayed outwardly. (verything is su used with our own consciousness. 9ut then" i this consciousness is not really centered in me" i it meets me rom without as well as within" can it be ully my own? .hile dreaming" I am not set wholly apart rom my plastic and psychically active surroundingsH I inhabit a world that is alive" with no clear boundary between inside and outside. And in this union with the world lies cradled a deep wisdom. 9y attending to my dreams" I may recogni6e an inner need long be ore my intellect ully awakens to it. There are" then" di erent levels o consciousness or awareness" 5uite apart rom the possession o di erent acts. Indeed" achievement o a certain level o consciousness is re5uired be ore we can possess any acts at all 77 as opposed to their possessing us in a dream. There are ways o knowing besides the knowing o acts. .hile the wisdom o the ancients was certainly not a technological or scienti ic savvy" we cannot or that reason alone dismiss it. That would be like critici6ing the tern or its inability to conceptuali6e modern navigational theory. History as an a.a%ening The human race has awakened by degrees. And our arousal continues. 'nly during the past ew hundred years" or e0ample" has the discipline o history e0isted in anything like its present orm. The ,reeks and $omans had their historians" o course" but their narratives served primarily as story and moral e0ample. The study o the past or its own sake" and the idea that the present grows out o the past like a plant rom a seed by a se5uence o wholly natural causes and e ects" really began taking hold only in the seventeenth century" I+I as one result o a new and peculiarly re le0ive awareness2 The irst modern historians ound it possible in a new degree to step back rom the immediate stream o human e0perience and view it all as ob3ective process. They began to see more
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clearly 77 standing outside o it 77 a development in which their orbears had only been immersed as participants. Thus they continued that same distancing o psyche rom ob3ect" that same pulling away o consciousness rom that7o 7which7it7is7conscious" whereby our primeval ancestors irst came to know that the world was2 The new interest in origins e0tended beyond human history" embracing biological F)arwinianG" geological" and cosmological origins. At the same time" awareness turned in upon itsel even more with the discoveries o the depth psychologists. .e became aware" as it were" o unawareness" conscious o the subconscious 77 o that to which" though it is indeed a kind o consciousness" we have not yet ully awakened. Cikewise" i history is a species o sel 7re lection" then the still younger discipline o historiography 77 the study o the nature o history 77 is re lection upon re lection. 'ur love o the pre i0 meta/ today testi ies to our inveterate habit o stepping back to consider every sub3ect rom a yet higher vantage point. It may not come as stirring news that the human race has been waking up. .e have placed a man on the moon 77 surely a task re5uiring wake ulnessD And who among us does not ully e0pect that we will come to know more and more o what is 77 i :ung-s peculiar emphasis really means anything? 9ut the emphasis does mean something" or it points beyond the accumulation o in ormation to a change in the nature o our consciousness. It helps us to interrupt our preoccupation with technological accomplishment" and directs attention to the sorts o changes that made technology possible in the irst place. There may" a ter all" be dangers as well as advantages in these changes. History suggests a progressive contraction o consciousness into the skull o the detached" sel 7contained" and isolated observer" so that we come to know the world as set apart rom ourselves. %ore and more o our e0perience becomes a chronicling o <world< or <other"< until we stand inally as detached observers even o our own sub3ectivity. 'ur awareness sharpens" becoming clearer and more wake ul" by virtue o this contraction rom the periphery 77 rom dreamlike entanglement in the world 77 to a ocused center. 9ut the uttermost center o a circle is a null point. %ight we become so radically detached rom the surrounding world that we can no longer ind our way back to it 77 that we lose not only the world but also ourselves? %ight we" in the end" wake up to nothing at all? The solitary bird" gripped by an unknowing intensity as it ploughs through the trackless ether 77 <pulled along< by an intelligence lying more in the world than in itsel 77 hears" on the dull edges o its consciousness" a call o destiny sung by hidden choirs. It is not alone. I" on the other hand" venture to set my oot in one direction rather than another only amidst a sei6ure o sel 7doubt. I hear no call" and I am alone. I observe with greater and greater precision rom a position o greater and greater isolation. %eaning disappears in the ace o narrow certainty" so that I become more and more certain about ever thinner acts that no longer bear their own signi icance within themselves. The world is the womb o meaningH without it we cannot live. .hatever else we may say about the dream" it connects us meaning ully to the world. It is no accident that we sometimes hear <messages< in our dreams. .here the world o our waking e0perience has become or us inert and dead" the dreamworld remains alive with psyche. The elements o a dream are re5uently charged with an inner signi icance" although typically we cannot 5uite <put our ingers on< the meaning 77 cannot grasp it consciously" with our waking minds. It is as i meaning and clear intellectual apprehension stand in a kind o tension" with each e0isting at the e0pense o the other. The more we wake up" the less dreamlike or meaning ul our li e becomes" which is also to say" the less connection we ind to the world. .e come to know the world ob3ectively by being cut o rom it. This parado0" growing ever more acute" raises the 5uestion 3ust how much longer our contracting psychic centers can hold their worlds together. The &in# of the co&p ter <9ut wait"< you say. <This has gone ar enough. 9irds do not Mtake wing upon a sea o wisdom.- &or is their consciousness somehow vaguely di used through the world. And those Mhidden choirs- they hear are actually staccato data streams issuing rom internal computers 77 biological in ormation7processing mechanisms much like the silicon7based machines o our own latter7day invention. #oetic re erences to dreams and the rest are ine" but don-t substitute them or knowledge o how the world really worksD< .ith this ob3ection we arrive at that modern ascination with the computer as an image o the human mind. The ascination may itsel be symptomatic o a urther development in the evolution o consciousness. I we demarcate one end o the spectrum o consciousness by imagining the pro ound dream o the higher animal" we see something like the opposite end e0empli ied in the computer. 2or the computer never dreams" and it does not know meaning. .hat we meet in the computer is a kind o pure" unblinking wake ulness" an unsurpassed logical clarity with no awareness o content" a consciousness that has contracted to a nullity" so that the only things le t to it are the empty logical orms o its own per ect acuity. &ow" without too much di iculty we can imagine a consciousness wholly sunken into dream" possessed o no waking awareness Fso caught up 77 like the entranced :ung 77 within an awareness of! that there can be no separation or detachment" no awareness thatG. .e ind it much less easy" however" to imagine a consciousness 3olted into an utterly blank wake ulness 77 a consciousness so detached$y aware" that it has lost all contact with anything of which to be aware. This may seem like so many empty words. #erhaps our di iculty arises because the ormer condition" while largely behind us" survives ragmentarily in our nightly dreams" whereas the other still lies ahead" even i we are rapidly approaching it. The computer may allow us to see clearly and in advance a state o mind that otherwise might overcome us by surprise.

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It is no accident that the problem o meaning now disturbs those disciplines most vigorously pursuing computer models o the mind. How does a computer really mean anything by its output 77 its mechanically generated strings o symbols? How does it transcend mechanism and arrive at reason? The computer manipulates a symbol F or e0ample" the word <house<G solely according to the symbol-s ormH how" then" does it get rom the orm o the word <house< 77 a particular se5uence o ive letters 77 to the content" the actual meaning o the word? Can a computer truly become aware o anything? %ost scholars and engineers within computer7related ields are convinced that" i we can only understand the mechanism o the computer-s intelligence su iciently" 5uestions o meanin) will somehow all into place as a kind o side e ect. A ter all" we human beings are merely comple0 mechanisms ourselves" are we not? In the end" whatever we have o meaning and conscious e0perience o the world will be ound in the computeri6ed robot as well. ' course" not a ew are willing to suggest that what we have o meaning is nothing at allH <meaning< and <e0perience< are simply peculiar varieties o sel 7 deception 77 phantasms o a sub3ectivity best e0empli ied Fand dismissedG in our dreams. And so we who pride ourselves in being ully awake seek to e0punge our last memories o those shadowy dreams still echoing rom the childhood o the race. &o longer capable o taking our own dreams seriously" and blind to our evolutionary past" we would reinterpret the consciousness o our ancestors upon the analogy o the computer. &ot content with waking up" we deny we have ever dreamed. This is all too easy. 2or the dream today has become ragile in the e0treme" vanishing 5uickly rom mind under the bright" eatureless glare o daytime wake ulness. The gods no longer avor us with overwhelming and power ul visitations. .hy should we who have delivered ourselves rom the ears and superstitions o the night take any urther notice o these things? 9ut primitive ear and superstition are not the only sources o terror in the world. .e have discovered our own more sophisticated terrors. 'r" to put the matter di erently" the gods with whom we once coe0isted in a dreamworld ind a way to take vengeance upon those who unceremoniously abandon them to the subconscious. &ot yet are we merely walking computational devices 77 as the very busy mental wards o our hospitals testi y. It was :ung himsel who most orce ully pointed out our sel 7 deceptions in this regard. I our dream7deprived world is no longer alive with psyche" i the gods have disappeared rom it Fhe repeatedly reminded usG" it is only because they have taken up residence within man himsel . And so long as we do not recogni6e their presence" we e0perience them as demons working their mischie through our subconscious instincts. .e then condemn ourselves to live out meanings not o our own making" without being awake to them. In other words" we obtain our sharply delineated consciousness by pushing our dream awareness ever urther into the unconscious" where the elements rage unrecogni6ed and beyond our control. As a conse5uence 77 and all our enlightenment notwithstanding 77 the parade o wars" tortures" mass murders" and suicides continues unabated" while alienation and psychic disintegration steadily corrode the thin veneer o civili6ation rom below. The so ! of the co&p ter .aking up" it turns out" is not 5uite the simple act we might have imagined. .e e0tract our consciousness rom our living surroundings" detaching our now isolated sub3ectivity and thereby reducing the world to a dead" inert collection o <things< with which we eel no inner connection. 9ut the world remains the only mirror in which consciousness can recogni6e itsel " so that we progressively come to e0perience ourselves in the same way we e0perience the mechanically conceived e0ternal world. .e lose our own inner li e" and our consciousness converges upon the empty abstractions o the machine. Ancient man" while dreaming" was at least dreaming of the powers enlivening the world. He thereby knew them" however dimly. .e" on the other hand" have gained our acute" materially e ective consciousness only at the cost o losing altogether our awareness o the li e within things. That li e has retreated into our unconscious. 'wen 9ar ield had something like this in mind when he remarked that the possibility o man-s avoiding sel 7destruction depends on his reali6ing be ore it is too late that what he let loose over Hiroshima" a ter iddling with its e0terior or three centuries like a mechanical toy" was the orces o his own unconscious mind. I1I 9ut our alienation rom the world has proceeded so ar that we cannot receive this warning as anything but a pictures5ue overstatementB we accept that the orces unleashed in the atomic bomb are <our own< orces only in the sense that it re5uires human beings to conceive" assemble" and deploy the thing. The <ob3ective< orces themselves remain 5uite independent o the human mind. That" however" is not what 9ar ield is saying. He speaks as one who has traced the withdrawal o nature-s living powers into the lost depths o the individual" and who there ore knows the connection between man-s unconscious" on the one hand" and the orces hitherto lying bound in matter on the other. /////// The entire spectrum o consciousness" rom primeval dream to modern wake ulness" can in a certain sense be ound within the individual man today 77 e0cept that the dreaming has lapsed into a deeper unconsciousness against which we have purchased our ever narrower observational prowess. .e wake up by abandoning the dream world to complete darkness. The computer presents an apt image or the endpoint o this process. 'r" rather" it stands as one possi+$e endpoint" or we may still choose to move in a di erent direction. Having once <come to ourselves"< we can resist the urther contraction o our wake ulness to a
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nullity" seeking instead to deepen it. .e can" that is" work to encompass with renewed consciousness what has previously allen rom awareness 77 not by sinking ourselves back into dream" but by taking hold in ull wake ulness o the wisdom that once possessed the dreaming childhood o the race. This is the task o imagination. The computer-s pure wake ulness7without7content is" in act" no wake ulness at all" or being per ectly alert to nothing hardly 5uali ies as being awake. &or will we ind our deepest kinship with the computer by looking at how its logic circuits are empty shadows o our own thinking. .hat" in the end" binds us most irresistibly to our computers 77 what ascinates us almost beyond recall 77 is what we are least conscious o " because most horri ied o . I the computer-s watch ul eye is the red" unblinking eye o Sauron" we will no doubt have to probe the most hidden secrets o silicon and pulsing electricity to ind its soul 77 only to discover there the same powers that 9ar ield discerned in the blast over Hiroshima. -eferences 1. :ung" 1?;>B ?87?;. +. 9ar ield" 1?;=B chapter 1. 1. 9ar ield" 1?=1B 1;. $ona *isa0s Smile @irtual reality has its precedents. #ygmalion" the artist o ,reek myth" sculpted the image o a young woman in ivory. Stricken by her beauty" he prayed to Aphrodite or a bride in her likeness. The goddess granted his wish by bringing the statue to li e. <.ithout the underlying promise o this myth"< wrote the eminent art critic" (. H. ,ombrich" and without <the secret hopes and ears that accompany the act o creation" there might be no art as we know it.< ,ombrich goes on to 5uote the contemporary (nglish artist" Cucien 2reudB A moment o complete happiness never occurs in the creation o a work o art. The promise o it is elt in the act o creation" but disappears towards the completion o the work. 2or it is then that the painter reali6es that it is only a picture he is painting. !ntil then he had almost dared to hope that the picture might spring to li e. I1I The creative urge runs strong. Alone among earth-s creatures" we contribute creatively even to the shaping o our own lives. <It is our nature to work upon our nature.< There ore we should not be wholly surprised by the yearning to create new worlds 77 even worlds unconstrained by the laws o our own genesis. And I think it is air to say that in the current e orts to sustain virtual realities" our creative aculties have in some sense achieved their urthest and most impressive reach. 'ne wonders" thoughB does our preoccupation with virtual reality also correspond to some sort o alienation rom the world? Here a historical perspective is desirable. Indisputably" our history has entailed an increasing <distance< between man and thing. Since the time o the ancients- vivid participation in a world alive with spirits" we have won our independence 77 our clear separation as sub3ects 77 rom a world o no7longer7ensouled ob3ects. As C. ,. :ung puts it" the spirits have led into the interior o the human individual" where they now con3ure themselves only as the ading and scienti ically disreputable images o our sub3ectivity 77 or rumble incoherently in the deep disturbances o our psyches. In our latter7 day" academically nourished wish to eradicate the ghost rom the machine" we would play the e0ecutioner in the inal act o the world-s dying. 2irst the ghost in the world" and now the ghost in ourselves. Could it be that this death o the world is what engenders our passion or virtual realities? )o we seek again the spirits that the ancients once ound so easily within stream and meadow" tree and mountain? 9ehind the success o every new Stephen Eing movie" every advance in special e ects" is there a secret hope and ear that the e ects might somehow burst through into reality" and that some ancient Harpy might suddenly reach out and )ra+ us? Is it our real yearning simply to become a$ive again" and to know the world as living? 9e ore we pray the gods o technology to grant ull li e to our creations" we should ask ourselves what it is we-re really a ter. 1 ne. interior, a ne. e,terior %ost o us still take some orm o <real inner li e< or granted" even i we must set it within the doubt ul 5uote marks o a reductionist science. 'ur pervasive doubts" we recogni6e" are historically recent 77 rom which one reasonable conclusion is that the inner li e seemed more real Fless doubt ulG to our orbears. .hich in turn points to certain changes in consciousness. 9ut how ar can we characteri6e such changes 77 i indeed they have really occurred? Can we realistically look or the point where the peculiarly private 77 and now increasingly doubt7ridden 77 modern consciousness was irst establishing itsel and wa0ing strong?

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)utch psychologist :an Hendrik van den 9erg writes about the mysterious smile o )a @inci-s 3ona =isa2 I+I #eople came rom ar and wide to see this smile 77 or it was" as van den 9erg says" <the ace o later generations"< the revelation o a new way to live. %ona Cisa was smiling over the delicious and une0pected discovery o an interior secret" a hidden sub3ectivity" power ul enough to remake the world. The sudden lowering o the $enaissance" the childlike ervor o the Scienti ic $evolution" the compelling urge that sent Columbus and the other great voyagers stead astly beyond the edges o the world" where sea monsters once dwelt 77 all testi ied to a humanity wa'in) up rom its medieval enchantment. .e stretched" blinked" rubbed our eyes" looked out upon a resh world we were seeing or the irst time. And" in that moment" we became aware o the one who was inside" looking. The new sub3ectivity was thus married to a new ob3ectivity. It was not only %ona Cisa-s smile that became amous" but also the landscape behind her. It is the irst landscape painted as a landscape" 3ust because it was a landscape. A pure landscape" not 3ust a backdrop or human actionsB nature" nature as the middle ages did not know it" an e0terior nature closed within itsel and sel 7su icient" an e0terior rom which the human element has" in principle" been removed entirely. It is things7in7their7 arewell" and there ore is as moving as a arewell o our dearest. It is the strangest landscape ever beheld by human eyes. @an den 9erg proceeds to 5uote $ilkeB <This landscape is not the portrayal o an impression" it is not the 3udgment o a man on things at restH it is nature coming into being" the world coming into e0istence" unknown to man as the 3ungle o an unknown island. It had been necessary to see the landscape in this way" ar and strange" remote" without love .... It had to be almost hostile in its e0alted indi erence" i " with its ob3ects" it was to give a new meaning to our e0istence.< 'wen 9ar ield on some occasions speaks o the peculiarly valuable reverence or devotion toward nature" and the sel less" disinterested study o it" made possible only by our e0perience o it as something separate rom ourselves. 2rom this e0perience modern science was born. It is a way o relating to nature" he says" that we should not relin5uish even i we go on to rediscover our deep" inner connection to the world around us. 9ut i our own challenge is to ind our way back to a meaning ul world" in )a @inci-s time the prospect was one o newly impending separation. The world was only beginning to move away rom man 77 the modern sub3ect was emerging rom out o the world 77 and )a @inci was one o the irst to notice the newly independent landscape. He also noticed the noticing sub3ect" and the sub3ect could not repress a smile. The 2!oate# s 2@ect In the eighteenth century" $ousseau wrote the irst modern autobiography. He said in his Confessions" <I am going to attempt something that has never been done be ore and will never be attempted again.< He was right in his irst claim" notes van den 9erg" but wrong in the second. .rong? How could he even have dreamed such an insanity? .as no one ever again to write his personal con essions? 9ut" really" we must sympathi6e with $ousseau" or how could he have known? How could he have known that :ames :oyce would spew out more words to describe the internal adventures o a day than he" $ousseau" re5uired to relate the story o hal a li e? How could he have known that when all 5ualities were inally shi ted" not only in theory" but" conse5uently" in human e0perience" rom the primary side o the ledger to the secondary 77 rom the ob3ective side to the sub3ective 77 we would be le t acing a world o sheer abstraction" while our own interiors over lowed with a perple0ing sub3ectivity we knew less and less what to do with? $ousseau did not know. He was" as we say today" on the <leading edge< o history-s advance 77 but yet was too close to the <action< to see where it was leading. As nature gained ever greater independence" man-s inner li e tended inevitably toward the sub3ective 77 a vaguely meandering" mist7enshrouded stream no longer bound to the world-s increasingly sharp" ob3ective contours. And not all the books in all the libraries could contain the rising lood. @an den 9erg describes how the inner sel " which in $ousseau-s time was a simple" soberly illed" airy space" has become ever more crowded. #ermanent residents have even been admittedH at irst" only the parents ... inally it was the entire ancestry .... The space was divided" partitions were raised" and curtains appeared where in earlier days a ree view was possible. The inner sel grew into a complicated apartment building. The psychologists o our century" scouts o these inner rooms" could not inish describing all the things their astonished eyes saw. It did not take them long to surpass :oyce" and their work became endless in principle. The e0ploration o one apartment appeared to disturb anotherH and i the e0ploration moved to the ne0t place" the irst one again re5uired attention. Something ell down or a threat was utteredH there was always something. The inner li e was like a haunted house. 9ut what else could it be? It contained everything .... (verything that had previously belonged to everybody" everything that had been collective property and had e0isted in the world in which everyone lived" had to be contained by the individual. It could not be e0pected that things would be 5uiet in the inner sel . Fp. +1+G %ost o us 77 especially i we are engineers or scientists 77 try to ignore the unwelcome tenants" even as the pop psychologists drag them out be ore the public in a kind o traveling sideshow o reaks and wonders.
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3,c rsions to the 1!ps It happens to have been $ousseau as well who e0hibited" in those same Confessions! what subse5uently became known as a <sense o nature.< Cater" in 0u$ie F1=;1G" he wrote more completely o the emotion elt upon traveling through the Alps. Apparently he spoke or many others. Cike an epidemic the new sensation spread through (urope. (very one wished to see what $ousseau had seen" to e0perience the same ecstasy. (verybody visited Swit6erland and climbed the Alps. This had not happened be ore $ousseau. It was then that the Alps became a tourist attraction. #reviously they had been an obstacle .... (ven in 1=8A" Henault" a poet and a riend o @oltaire-s" crossed the :ura and the Alps without the least enthusiasm" merely observing" <There is always a creek at my side and rocks above my head" which seem about to all in the creek or upon me.< These words would nowadays dis5uali y him as a poet.... I1I These changes make a di erence. <The economic and social structure o Swit6erland"< writes 9ar ield" is owing in part to the tourist industry" which in turn depends upon the act that <the mountains which twentieth7century man sees are not the mountains which eighteenth7century man saw.< I4I I there is a certain ideal esthetic distance" a point o ma0imum ascination" a stance o <ob3ective sub3ectivity< wherein man and world resonate in the most e05uisite tension" then it was the $omantics who lived most ully in that tension. I8I It is the point where man is su iciently detached rom <things< to appreciate their independent li e" but not so detached that he has lost all consciousness o his inner connection to them. His separation rom the world only allows him to savor all the more his union with it. The distancing process" however" was not arrested by the $omantics" so that van den 9erg is correct in observing how <the estrangement o things" which brought $omanticism to ecstasy" belongs" or the most part" to the past.< .e are no longer close enough to the world even to eel the conscious ascination o our estrangementB %any o the people who" on their traditional trip to the Alps" ecstatically ga6e at the snow on the mountain tops and at the a6ure o the transparent distance" do so out o a sense o duty. They are only imitating $ousseauH they are simulating an emotion which they do not actually eel. It is simply not permissible to sigh at the vision o the great views and to wonder" or everyone to hear" whether it was really worth the trouble. And yet the 5uestion would be ully 3usti iedH all one has to do is see the sweating and sunburned crowd" a ter it has streamed out o the train or the bus" plunge with resignation into the recommended beauty o the landscape to know that or a great many the trouble is greater than the en3oyment. To !oo% or not %ost o us will recogni6e something o ourselves in this description. Strangely" however" our alienation rom nature is matched only by our passion to <capture< these bland encounters" to reproduce them in the more easily grasped two dimensions. <There" I-ve got it"< we say as we click the shutter and turn away. This is not really reproducing nature" however" or the e0perience was not o nature" but o ta'in) the picture2 <I-ve seen people in the (verglades come onto the walkway with their video e5uipment" take a picture" and go away"< says %assachusetts naturalist :ohn %itchell. <They will go home and put it on and they will see the image they have captured o it. They will never have seen the real place.< I;I This happens even more curiously where nature-s governing course was once so urgent as to be acknowledged in rites o passage. Coming o age" betrothal" marriage" birth 77 on such occasions today the camera is rede ining the events themselves" so that a derivative activity replaces whatever original signi icance may have remained. I must get the picture be ore I lose the too75uickly7 passing moment 77 be ore the world departs rom me 77 and then I can en3oy it orever a ter. I the technology is clever enough" I can even hope the replay will give me a little shiver o thrill. 9ut why e0pect to be thrilled by what I couldn-t be bothered to see in the irst place? #ygmalion received a living bride rom cold marbleH on my part" I willingly e0change real li e or a secondhand image. There is a strange" double7sided gesture here 77 a reaching or something even as I avert my ace rom it. The present moment seems so illed with meaning that I must capture it or eternity" and yet seems so devoid o meaning that I can spend the <eternal moment< iddling with my lenses" happily de erring to the later contemplation o a lat image. It-s not clear what that image will enable me to recall" i I have shunned the original e0perience. 'ur culture-s ascinated obsession with images has o ten been remarked. .hat I want to suggest is a simple reason or it 77 one that accounts or the double nature o the obsessionB i I dare not really look at nature" it is or ear that I will only draw a blank. The sense o pro ound meaning 5uivering 3ust beneath the sur ace o my consciousness may turn out to have been only the random twitching o nerves. .orse yet" I will not knowB is the blank in nature" or in me? I=I At the same time Fthis is the other side o the gestureG" I hope to overcome the blank. I desperately pursue the sights because" in a dim sort o way" I seek the ground o my being. I seek some kind o sel 7a irmation" a connection to the oundation o things" a reminder that I really am possessed o a signi icant e0istence" because the world in which I am rooted is signi icant.

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9ut this is not yet 5uite ade5uate. %ere blankness 77 nothing at all 77 cannot inspire ear. )arkness can" however" and the blank I speak o is a kind o darkness. 'ne never knows what the darkness may hold. So the 5uestion becomesB what is it that lives and stares back at me rom nature-s darkness" that I cannot bear to recogni6e" let alone return its ga6e? .hat is it that I ind tolerable only when it is reduced to a picture" a re lection" the sa e abstractions o science? The answer will" I hope" have been suggested by all the precedingB the source o my ears is what the ancients reveled in. It is what 77 in its gradual departure rom the world 77 ascinated )a @inci-s contemporaries" enchanted $ousseau" and provoked the $omantics to something like pagan worship. 9ut now it has retreated so thoroughly into the interior o things 77 which is at the same time the human interior 77 and been so long lost rom sight that I can scarcely imagine the monstrous orms into which the pagan deities have twisted themselves in their hidden darkness. So I shield mysel rom the loathsome visages" reimagining the world as a collection o ob3ects 77 sur aces without interiors" which is e0actly what the photograph gives me. <2ear"< writes 9ar ield" <is the true origin o materialism<B #erhaps ... it is 3ust the desire o avoiding Jthe beings o whom the interior consistsK" perhaps it is even the ear o such a recognition" which has made the word <pattern< so popular o late. And there is ,esta$t" too .... .e glimpse a countenance" and we say hurriedlyB <*es" that is indeed a ace" but it is the ace o nobody.< I>I .e swim within a veritable sea o images 77 printed" televised" and now computeri6ed 77 and the one thing most people seem to agree on is that these images are in some sense arti icial" virtual" unreal. And so they are. )esiring to eel alive" we invite them to <scare< us or otherwise to create memorable moments. 9ut the results are never 5uite real enough" so that we must resort to an endless crescendo o special e ects. &o wonderH these images are a kind o barrier 77 something we can <paste over< the world to preserve our distance even as they deliver a sa e" surrogate thrill. They are tamely cerebral arti acts" increasingly generated and controlled by <electronic brains.< #ro3ecting our wonder ully precise" uncontaminated" mathematical coordinates upon the world-s screen" we disguise the blank" unruly darkness behind. 5acing the #ar%ness .e have yet to make peace with our haunting ghosts 77 this despite the sometimes overly eager claim that they are <only< within us" duly chastened and awaiting their inal dismissal by science. The monsters that once prowled the edges o the known world were ully acknowledgedH now" however" having long denied them due recognition" we ind that they are everywhere 77 3ust behind the mirror sur aces that bear our arti icial images. To say they have retreated into the interior o man" is not to deny their presence in the world" or the signi icance o this retreat is precisely that man-s interior has become the world-s interior. I?I The more thoroughly we banish our unwelcome spirits rom <ob3ective< spaces" the more menacing and intimate becomes their approach to us. &othing in the history o this century suggests that their ravening appetites have been sated. .e glimpse their powers on the one hand when we prod nature into a nuclear outburst Freassuring ourselves all the while that we ully understand the theory o atom7splittingG 77 and on the other hand when the ission o a much7too7brittle sel leads to the mental ward. These are not altogether unrelated phenomena. I have previously cited 9ar ield-s remark that the possibility o man-s avoiding sel 7destruction depends on his reali6ing be ore it is too late that what he let loose over Hiroshima" a ter iddling with its e0terior or three centuries like a mechanical toy" was the orces o his own unconscious mind. I1AI There are other observations that" i taken seriously" testi y to the intimate" creative relation between man and nature. (arlier in this chapter I alluded to the dependence o the Swiss economy upon chan)es in mountains during the last ew centuries 77 changes correlative to the evolution o consciousness. Similarly" 'scar .ilde once asked" <Have you noticed that &ature has recently begun to look like Corot-s landscapes?< I11I And (. H. ,ombrich reminds us that the <pictures5ue< 5ualities we now discover in nature could only have arisen rom our own habits o picture7making. I1+I (ven the physicist" in his drive to puri y the phenomenal world o all <contamination< by sub3ectivity" has ound the in luences binding observer to observed inally inescapable. These" however" are indications o a relation to nature that remains largely unconscious. They point rather to what remains o an older condition than to the basis or a new" conscious relation such as 9ar ield is signaling. 9ut a sober recognition o the one relation can perhaps stimulate us toward a responsible pursuit o the other. 2rom the thunderings o a %ount Sinai that threatened all who were oolish enough to look upon it 77 to the striking" precipitous landscape behind %ona Cisa" 3ust then preparing to receive the sel 7 assured" scienti ic ga6e o the uture 77 to the ecstatic Alps o $ousseau 77 to our own rather ba ling wilderness areas whose secret we can no longer guess 77 i we begin to see these e0ternal changes as the inevitable correlates o changes within ourselves" then we can also begin to accept responsi+i$ity or the changes outside us by taking in hand the changes within us. 1rt an# the techno!ogica! i&age 'ne might reasonably ask whether the rapid ascendancy o the computer7generated image in our day represents a urther leeing rom the world-s interior" or somehow a reversal o the light. There are" un ortunately" ew reasons or optimism. I the camera shields us against reality" the broad convergence o imaging techni5ues upon virtua$ reality bespeaks a desire to convert the shield into the ull surround o an impenetrable ortress. I have spoken o a double gestureB the scarcely conscious ascination that re5uires me to look"
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and the simultaneous dropping o an arti icial screen to intercept my ga6e. @irtual realities promise endless ascination without any apparent risk that the horror o the real world might leak through. There is at least this to be said or computeri6ed imageryB so ar as it becomes interactive" it invites a kind o creative participation on our part. .e begin to e0perience a certain inner power with respect to the images around us. 9ut so long as we e0ercise this power in isolation rom the world" it threatens to become arbitrary" unrooted" destructive. Anyone who is aware o the images in video games" or e0ample" will understand 9ar ield-s concern when he saysB given how ar nature has evolved during the ew hundred years since the medieval era" it isn-t hard to imagine our now moving" over a similar or shorter period" <into a chaotically empty or a antastically hideous world.< He goes onB .e should remember this" when appraising the aberrations o the ormally representational arts. ' course" in so ar as these are due to a ectation" they are o no importance. 9ut in so ar as they are genuine" they are genuine because the artist has in some way or other e0perienced the world he represents. And in so ar as they are appreciated" they are appreciated by those who are themselves willing to make a move towards seeing the world in that way" and" ultimately there ore" seeing that kind o world. .e should remember this" when we see pictures o a dog with si0 legs emerging rom a vegetable marrow or a woman with a motorbicycle substituted or her le t breast. I11I This suggests another concern. #ygmalion was an artist. )uring the $enaissance it was the artisan7scientist who observed and devoutly portrayed the world-s recession. The true artist cannot be content merely to tinker with e0teriors like a mechanic" but must work rom within outwards. Today" however" no one will dare to claim that much art remains in the engineering organi6ations spawning ambitious virtual realities. All has been reduced to abstraction and calculation. I it is my own spirit I rediscover in the virtual arti act" then I must admit that it is a clean" antiseptic spirit distilled down to its mathematical grasp o three7dimensional images. *et there remains hope that our technological e0ploits will disturb ancient memories o a primal" creative ire 77 ire that even now we might steal and so make o ourselves Fnot our machinesG a urnace to warm and revivi y the world7hearth rom within. Such creative responsibility is" in any case" being thrust upon us 77 as both the challenge o the global environment and the conundrums o bioethics testi y. .e are not allowed a sa e" technological iddling with the e0terior o things. .e are given a choiceB to nourish unawares the spirits who rose in grotes5uely beauti ul prayer over Hiroshima 77 and who today in their hiddenness have multiplied and scattered to every corner o the globe even as they have burrowed yet more invasively into our subconscious 77 or to risk the unknown horrors o our own darkness in the hope o unearthing there the deeply creative images o a renewed world. -eferences 1. ,ombrich" 1?;?B ?4. +. van den 9erg" 1?=8B +1A711. 1. van den 9erg" 1?=8B +11. 4. 9ar ield" 1?;8aB 14874;. 8. 9ar ield somewhere makes this point. ;. )umanoski" 1??A. =. )avid Sewell draws my attention to these lines in (merson-s essay on <&ature<B <The ruin or the blank that we see when we look at nature is in our own eye. The a0is o vision is not coincident with the a0is o things" and so they appear not transparent but opa5ue. The reason why the world lacks unity" and lies broken and in heaps" is because man is disunited with himsel .< >. 9ar ield" 1?;8bB ;A" 1;A. ?. See appendi0 A" <'wen 9ar ieldB The (volution o Consciousness.< 1A. 9ar ield" 1?=1B 1;. 11. This is Andre ,ide-s paraphrase o more e0tended comments by .ilde. See van den 9erg" 1?=8B 8+ n. 1+. ,ombrich" 1?;?B 118. 11. 9ar ield" 1?;8aB 14;.

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Seeing in -ers ective It-s impressive" the wi6ardry we place in the hands o the 17) graphics programmer. He is barely out o college 77 or perhaps not even that 77 and we entrust to him a mechanism or turning the world inside out. And the mechanism itsel is pure simplicityB a 404 mathematical matri0. Armed with this little matri0" he can take any scene" real or imagined" apply a coordinate system to it" and then recompose the scene point by point until we see it rom an entirely di erent perspective. That is" he can pro9ect the scene any way he wishes 77 which includes pro3ecting it realistically onto a two7dimensional sur ace. %oreover" he can do all this with absolute idelity to the original. .ell" almost. Absolute idelity" it turns out" is as challenging a standard to meet in this conte0t as it is in some others. To see 3ust how challenging" we need to look back toward the age o aith" to when the pro3ective laws 77 usually called the laws o linear perspective 77 were 3ust being discovered. -enaissance virt a! rea!ity .hen" in early i teenth7century 2lorence" 2ilippo 9runelleschi contrived the irst painting in <true perspective"< he raised a sensation. #artly" o course" this was due to his showmanship. He insisted that his riends stand e0actly where he himsel had stood while painting the panel" and directed them to look upon the original scene he had painted. Then he held the painting up with its +ac'side directly in ront o the viewer-s ace. A tiny eyehole was drilled through the middle o the panel. ,a6ing through the eyehole" a viewer simply witnessed the original scene. 9ut i a mirror was held up in ront o the painting" he now beheld the painting instead 77 and it was so accurately drawn in perspective that it was indistinguishable rom the original. 9runelleschi-s cunning e0tended even urther" however" or instead o painting a sky in the upper part o the work" he put burnished silver there. &ow" with the aid o the mirror" the astonished viewer saw wind7blown clouds dri ting across the top o the painting. Here" in this calculated con usion o real world and arti ice" the technological 5uest or virtual reality was launched. So" too" was the controversy. The new" perspectival art struck viewers with the orce o a power ul and deceit ul illusion" as had even ,iotto-s earlier" purely empirical e0perimentations with perspective. <There is nothing"< 9occaccio said" <which ,iotto could not have portrayed in such a manner as to deceive the sense o sight.< %uch later the )utch artist Samuel van Hoogstraeten" acknowledging that his task was to < ool the sense o sight"< went on to urge that the painter must thoroughly understand <the means by which the eyes are deceived.< This is not so easy 77 as those who try to represent three7dimensional reality on the sur ace o goggles know all too well. How can a painting 77 a lat" two7dimensional sur ace 77 appear to be what it is not? How can it look like a three7dimensional scene? In what sense does the lat work o art incorporate the laws o ull7bodied reality 77 and in what sense does it all short o that reality? 1 c!ean, &athe&atica! space It is hard or us to appreciate how radically 9runelleschi-s triumph changed the world. %ore than thatB he made the world disappear. A hint o the disappearance already occurs in my description aboveB I summari6ed 9runelleschi-s achievement without the slightest mention o what it was he painted. As it happens" he painted the 9aptistery o St. :ohn in the #ia66a del )uomo o 2lorence. 9ut that hardly mattered" or it was as i everything had become invisible to 9runelleschi e0cept a collection o points 77 mathematical coordinates. To describe the essence o his achievement" so ar as we are concerned with it today" is to describe a rigorous" mathematical method. It reduces the world to sur aces" and sur aces to points" and 77 as the graphics programmer knows very well 77 points to numbers. These contentless points" according to the ,erman master o perspective" Albrecht )uerer" <are the beginning and end o all things.< ' course" the world had not yet really disappeared or 9runelleschi and his contemporaries. 9ut in discovering the practical rules o strict" geometric perspective" he per ormed a momentous act o abstraction that hastened the world upon its vanishing course. .here we might have e0pected him to see the 9aptistery" what actually captured his attention was a <visual pyramid<B the collection o straight lines raying rom all the building-s sur aces to his own single" i0ed eye. (ach o those lines mapped a point o the 9aptistery to a point on the <picture plane< 77 the artist-s canvas. 9y mapping a ew de initive points in this ashion" 9runelleschi could easily ill in the rest o the picture in near7per ect perspective. In technical terms" the perspectival rendering o a scene is a pro3ection o the scene rom an eyepoint" as sectioned by the plane o the canvas. *ou can obtain the same e ect by tracing the scene on a window while keeping one eye closed and the other eye absolutely stationery. 'r else by using a camera. And so the artist learned" with simple tools and an increasingly practiced eye 77 to per orm the same magic our programmer now summons with her 404 matri0. .hile the methods di er 77 the artist no doubt possessing a uller and more concrete sense or what he is actually doin)" i only because o his necessarily <primitive< methods 77 the underlying mathematical conceptions remain the same. To arrive at these conceptions was one o the remarkable accomplishments o the $enaissance.

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)uring the medieval era there had been no coordinated sense o mathematical spaceB an <all7pervasive and uni orm space as we now conceive it was then unimaginable.< I1I .hat did e0ist was more like an inner space 77 a space o meaning" a space o concretely elt interrelationships by which the individual was bound to the cosmos" nourished and sustained. It was a sense or these inner patterns 77 not the mathematical distribution o ob3ects within an abstract" containerlike space 77 that Fso oddly or usG gave organi6ation and coherence to a medieval painting. Space did not present itsel independently o thingsH it was more like the 5ualitatively varying presence o things" and derived its local <shape< rom them. 9ut in the art o linear perspective" Space is created irst" and then the solid ob3ects o the pictured world are arranged within it in accordance with the rules which it dictates. Space now contains the ob3ects by which ormerly it was created .... The result is an appro0imation to an in inite" mathematically homogeneous space. I+I <Space now contains the ob3ects by which ormerly it was created.< This is an art historian speaking" and he is re erring to changes in the techni5ues o the painter. 9ut the 5uestion remainsB were these changes orced upon the artist by a truer knowledge o the world" or were they imposed upon the world by the artist? .as the new art o perspective ob3ectively valid" or did it merely become a habit o our sub3ectivity? "as the .or!# create# in perspectiveA 'ver the century and a hal or so ollowing 9runelleschi-s demonstration" the new rules o perspective trans ormed the art o all (urope. Surely" we might think" their triumph was guaranteed by their necessity" their rightness. A ter all" to move rom the medieval resco to a painting o the high $enaissance is" or us" to move rom a disconcerting" childish 9abel o the eye to the clear obviousness o the real world. And" in any case" the behavior o light rays and the mathematics o pro3ection are indisputable. How else could one draw correctly? In other words" i ,od hadn-t wanted us to represent the world in perspective" He wouldn-t have created it that way. I you are inclined toward this conviction" then you may be surprised to hear the 5uestion put by psychologist $. C. ,regoryB It is an e0traordinary act that simple geometric perspective took so long to develop 77 ar longer than ire or the wheel 77 and yet in a sense it has always been present or the seeing. 9ut is perspective present in nature? Is perspective a discovery" or an invention o the $enaissance artists? I1I ,regory is here alluding to a twentieth7century scholarly s5uall that the respected ,erman art historian" (rwin #ano sky" kicked up in 1?+8 with the publication o his Perspective as (ym+o$ic Form. #ano sky" whose essay was both brie and di icult" argued that the conventions o linear perspective were cultural symbols" not absolute truths. They are <comprehensible only or a 5uite speci ic" indeed speci ically modern" sense o space" or i you will" sense o the world.< I4I However obscure #ano sky-s actual thesis may have been" its time was at hand" and many others echoed his theme. 2or e0ample" Sir Herbert $eadB .e do not always reali6e that the theory o perspective developed in the i teenth century is a scienti ic conventionH it is merely one way o describing space and has no absolute validity. I8I The inevitable <common7sense< backlash was e5ually vigorous. #hysiologist %. H. #irenne" responding to #ano sky" declared latly that <Mthe strange ascination which perspective had or the $enaissance mind- was the ascination o truth.< I;I The dispute continues into our own day" and has tended not so much toward resolution as toward e0haustion among the mani old" tortured byways o argument 77 rom the physiology and psychology o sense perception to the subtleties o epistemological theory. It seems characteristic o the past ew centuries that the 5uestion <what belongs to the mind and what belongs to the world?< leads us in so many di erent arenas to the same brick wall 77 or mental block. -ea!!y, no.. "asn)t the .or!# create# in perspectiveA All right" it-s true. .e all 'now the world <comes< in perspective" even i " as philosophers or art critics" we divert ourselves with contrary speculations. .hy pretend otherwise? It-s simply impossible to imagine a nonperspectival world. Cight travels in straight lines 77 we can-t see around cornersD The geometry o perspective ollows ine0orably. *es" let-s ace these acts. 9ut no acts can stand alone. .e must establish at least a minimal conte0t. 2or a start" here are three things to think aboutB Cultural variations &on7.esterni6ed peoples re5uently do not <read< perspectival images Fincluding photographsG the way we do. They may see nothing recogni6able even in a amiliar scene" or else may piece the image together only with painstaking analysis. ,regory" re erring to the apparent learning involved in such reading" suggests it is ortunate that perspective was invented be ore the cameraH otherwise" <we
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might have had great di iculty in accepting photographs as other than weird distortions.< In other words" we had to become amiliar with and learn about perspectival images be ore they could seem wholly natural to us. :an )eregowski speculates that those who have di iculty interpreting perspectival drawings are unable to <integrate the pictorial elements. They see individual symbols and cues but are incapable o linking all the elements into a consolidated whole.< I=I This is a particularly striking thought" or we are accustomed to thinking o perspective as having introduced a coherent" universal" pictorial space in which ob3ects can or the irst time ind their <proper< places relative to each other. Shouldn-t this make it easier or the unacculturated observer? Apparently not. When the blind receive sight Thanks to modern surgery" many o the congenitally blind have been given their sight. 'r rather" they have been given healthy eyes. 9ut it turns out that seeing re5uires much more than unctioning eyes and nerves. .hen the operation is per ormed a ter early childhood" it sets a daunting task or the bene iciary. How well one sees depends" among other things" on the richness o prior e0perience with touch and the other senses. (ven a ter e0tended adaptation" the ormerly blind person may need to eel an ob3ect with his hands be ore he can <see< a meaning ul shape. There are other problems as well. ,regory reports on the case o S. 9." who received a donated cornea at i ty7twoB 9e ore the operations" he was undaunted by tra ic. He would cross alone" holding his arm or his stick stubbornly be ore him" when the tra ic would subside as the waters be ore Christ. 9ut a ter the operation" it took two o us on either side to orce him across a roadB he was terri ied as never be ore in his li e. I>I S. 9. 77 as in many such cases 77 became rather depressed" and tended to withdraw rom his previous" highly active li e. F.hile blind" he had even ridden a bicycle" with the help o a riend.G <Some o the cases revert very soon to living without light" making no attempt to see. S. 9. would o ten not trouble to turn on the light in the evening" but would sit in darkness.< Having irst given up living" S. 9. died three years later. #he lateness of the discovery .hy did no one be ore 9runelleschi take what #ano sky calls <the apparently small step o intersecting the visual pyramid with a plane< and thereby construct a modern" perspectival representation o space? A ter all" (uclid had produced his geometry and optics some 1=AA years be ore 9runelleschi" and .estern culture" together with the Arabic" had continued to pursue these topics in a sophisticated manner. #er ect perspectival images were pro3ected by nature upon every window and mirror" and 77 with some inconvenience 77 these could have been traced by the in5uisitive artist. Such tracing would have made the essential rules o perspective" such as the e0istence o vanishing points" immediately obvious to one who was looking or them. %oreover" art itsel was in many other respects technically sophisticated 77 the great cathedrals are evidence enough o that. It is hard to believe that artists were incapable o sei6ing the rules o perspective" had those rules been there or the seeing. Samuel (dgerton voices a perple0ity shared by othersB How curious that an understanding o the mathematics o human pictorial representation occurred so late 77 and so locally 77 in history .... Today we are the tired children o JtheK discoveryH the magic o perspective illusion is gone" and the <innate< geometry in our eyes and in our paintings is taken or granted. Cinear perspective has been part and parcel o psyche and civili6ation or too many centuries" which is perhaps ar less astonishing than the act that it eluded men o all civili6ations or a thousand years prior to the J i teenth centuryK. I?I Li&itations of !inear perspective in art Clearly" seeing is not automatically given to the sighted. %uch o what we are tempted to call <ob3ective seeing< originates in the activity o the seeing sub3ect. I1AI This" combined with the lateness o the discovery o perspective" returns us all the more orcibly to ,regory-s 5uestionB how much o the <discovery< was in act an invention? 9ut the muddying o our conte0t grows even worse when we turn to the actual use o perspective in art. To represent something in geometric perspective is to pro3ect it rom a single" i0ed eyepoint. I you wish to view <correctly< a drawing created in this way" you must close one eye and position yoursel Fwith respect to the drawingG e0actly where the original eyepoint wasH otherwise" your perspective as viewer de eats the perspective <hardwired< into the drawing. .ith paintings such as )a @inci-s The =ast (upper 77 e0tending the length o one wall o a monastery-s re ectory 77 the perspective had to be < udged< in order to keep the image rom looking 5uite alse to the monks seated ar away rom the painter-s viewing point. %ore importantly" we do not normally see with 3ust one eye. 'pen a second eye and some o the depth e ect o the painting is lost. That is" with binocular vision we perceive depth 5uite e ectively" so that we immediately recogni6e the <real painting< or what it is 77 a lat sur ace with blobs o paint smeared across it. .e de eat the artist-s <deceptive< intentions. 9ut this is not all. In the sense that really counts" perspective gives us mathematically incorrect results. Have you ever noticed how paltry those mountains seem in the photographs you bring home rom vacation? *ou-re not 3ust imagining things. The mountains are
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seen relatively larger in reality than they are in the photograph" despite the act that the photograph yields an image in <per ect< perspective. Through an e ect known as si6e constancy scaling" we pick up on various cues about the distance o an ob3ect" and then compensate or great distance by seeing the ob3ect larger than geometry and optics would seem to allow. *ou can test this by holding one upraised hand at arm-s length in ront o you" with the other at hal that distance and not visually overlapping the irst. I you look alternately at your two hands" you are unlikely to see the nearer hand as double the si6e o the urther one" but only a little larger 77 despite the act that the retinal image o the one is twice as large as the other. Is your brain playing a nasty trick upon your eyes? 9e ore you answer yes too 5uickly" ask yoursel B which estimate o your hand si6es is closer to the truth o the hands themselves? It did not take long or the artists o the $enaissance to begin reali6ing the limitations o linear perspective. %ichelangelo scorned )uerer-s geometric methods" and claimed reliance upon the <compasses in the eye.< (ventually" art as illusion 77 which is to say" art as the imitation o something else 77 passed into triteness. The camera made it too easy. The artist began in5uiring more deeply into the underlying laws o seeing" o light" and o orm. Art moved 77 or wanted to move 77 closer to the seminal chaos within which the world itsel irst takes on orm. 4o .e see in here/ or I 9runelleschi made the world disappear" what were the instruments o his sorcery? Abstractions. #oints" rays" geometric trans ormations. <#oints are the beginning and end o all things.< 'nce we appreciate this" the dispute about whether perspective is in nature or is instead a cultural convention becomes either trivial or e0tremely misleading" depending upon what it is we-re really asking. I we e5uate <seeing in perspective< with certain abstract" mathematical characteristics o the perceived world" then surely the human race has always seen in perspective" even i it was only during the $enaissance that we irst noticed perspective and discovered how to represent it properly. The abstractions have always been there or the abstracting" whether or not people were capable o per orming the act o abstraction. Cight rays have always traveled in straight lines. 9ut" then" it is rather strange to argue that our ancestors saw what they were incapable o noticing. .hat the mathematician abstracts rom our seeing is not the seeing itsel . The pu66lement o non7 .esterni6ed people when looking at perspectival drawingsH the struggles o those who receive sight tardilyH and the sober lessons drawn by .estern artists a ter their initial e0citement with perspective 77 all declare that seeing involves much more than geometry and optics. 'r" at least" it did be ore our own day. 2or it-s true 77 and a matter o rightening import 77 that our own seeing has become increasingly abstract 77 which is why some who would instruct us in art urge us to <draw on the right side o the brain.< I11I It-s also true that our habit o abstraction is born o an e0treme sub3ect7 ob3ect polari6ationH only a detached sub3ect looking at an ob3ect rom a considerable sub3ective distance can analy6e that ob3ect and abstract rom it a set o mathematical properties. I asked aboveB did the new art o perspective possess ob3ective validity" or did it merely become a habit o our sub3ectivity? .hat we need to understand is that the very possibility o asking such 5uestions irst arose in the $enaissance. 2or it was then that .estern man irst began to e0perience the world as an abstract" mathematical <container< ull o ob3ects wholly separate rom himsel " and to e0perience himsel as an isolated" sub3ective interior ga6ing out through the window o his eyes upon a separate world. )ehind sub2ect and ob2ect I the elaboration o the rules o perspective was part o a larger historical development giving birth to the modern sub3ect and ob3ect" then we cannot hope to understand perspective itsel as either sub3ective or ob3ective. The processes that irst produced a sub3ect and ob3ect as we know them today cannot themselves be sub3ective or ob3ective. Here" as so o ten" it is ar more important to ask why our 5uestion arises at a certain point in history than it is to answer the 5uestion in its own misleading terms. And in order to undertake this more basic in5uiry" we need to step back rom the controversy and see it in a larger conte0t. @irtual reality may assist us. Suppose you are wearing a headset with all the related paraphernalia and are e0ploring a virtual world. Is that world sub3ective or ob3ective? &either answer 5uite su ices by itsel . Sub3ective" you say? *es" by all means. Its orms" <spoken< in a programming language" are now sustained by your own participation. .hatever you may think about a tree alling in the woods where no one hears it" there-s a strong case to be made that the room you-re e0ploring is not really there e0cept inso ar as your eyes and other senses are helping to create it. 'b3ective" you say? *es 77 that" too. (ven i or now this is the weaker side o the dual truth" there is undeniably an ob3ective component here. *ou cannot redesign the room according to your ancy. It has an ob3ective or given character" sustained intersub3ectively among those who may inhabit it. I you move a book rom the chair to the table" that is where another occupant o the room will ind it. There is" moreover" ob3ectivity in the entire representational apparatus" 3ust as there is in a two7dimensional painting. &ow imagine that you and others are in the same virtual room. Assume urther that the so tware a ords the group o you some means or collectively reconceiving the room 77 not by moving things around" but rather by recreating it" so to speak" rom the <inside"< at the level o the so tware. .hat is now sub3ective and what is ob3ective? I the collective sub3ectivity determines the ob3ective orms" and
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i the ob3ective orms in turn determine what each individual e0periences sub3ectively 77 well" it becomes risky to classi y things too rigidly as sub3ective or ob3ective. .hat I am suggesting" then 77 and or the moment I will leave it a bald suggestion 77 is thisB 5uite apart rom the <reality status< o our virtual room" the description 3ust given roughly captures the way we are situated in the rea$ wor$d2 I " as so many seem to think" virtual reality points toward a new paradigm" it is a paradigm having less to do with new" high7tech e0periences than with our participation in the world 77 a participation ancient and power ul in its origins Fi all but vanished rom modern e0perienceG and echoed only aintly in the modern technologies. I will return to this shortly. 9ringing all this to bear on the issue o perspective" we can say neither that perspective is ob3ectively inherent in the world" where it could only be discovered" nor that it was a mere convention waiting to be invented. $ather" our $enaissance predecessors saw a di erent world than the ancients saw" and at the same time the world was becoming di erent because o the way they saw it. Their world" like ours" was virtuality continually on the way toward reality. 1& 6 an e&2ryo or an is!an#A 'nly a knowing sub3ect can attain ob3ectivity" so that the ob3ect depends or its e0istence upon the sub3ect. And only through the indi erent ob3ect can a sub3ect know itsel as a sub3ect. Sub3ect and ob3ect are not pure opposites" but more like the opposite poles o a magnetB the north pole e0ists only by virtue o the south pole. &either can e0ist by itsel . The debate over perspective 77 was it discovered out there or invented in here 77 became possible only with the radicali6ation o this polarity. It is resolvable only when we recogni6e the mutual interpenetration that unites the apparent oppositesB there is something o the sub3ect in the most adamantine ob3ect" and an ob3ective" world7sustaining presence in the sheerest sub3ect. Cut o the smallest piece o one end o the magnet" and you will ind that it still possess +oth a south pole and a north pole. It is as impossible to conceive a pure sub3ect or pure ob3ect as it is to conceive a pure north or south pole. 9ut it is 5uite possible to lose sight o their mutual participation. Such is our plight today as in our radical sub3ectivity we imagine ourselves to con ront a radical ob3ectivity. All this is ground 'wen 9ar ield has worked over throughout the greater part o this century. A philologist" 9ar ield employs semantics to e0plore the changing balance between sub3ect and ob3ect throughout human history. .hat he says about the medieval era is particularly germane to our in5uiry. 2or e0ample" regarding nonperspectival artB 9e ore the scienti ic revolution the world was more like a garment men wore about them than a stage on which they moved. In such a world the convention o perspective was unnecessary. To such a world other conventions o visual reproduction" such as the nimbus and the halo" were as appropriate as to ours they are not. It was as i the observers were themselves in the picture. I1+I 'r" again" 9ar ield re ers to the %iddle Ages as a time when the individual <was rather less like an island" rather more like an embryo" than we are.< An embryo" too" recalls the notion o polarity" or interpenetration o opposites. It e0ists by virtue o the mother" and the mother bears it as an e0pression o her own nature. How do we escape our cultural conditioning and understand what could be meant by wearing the world as a garment" or e0periencing it as an embryo? #erhaps" in some ways" it will be easier or us once we have spent some time in a virtual reality boothD 9ut we also have what may be a more promising optionB we can attempt to get <inside< the consciousness o earlier cultures. &o one assists us more vividly in this task than 9ar ield" who is worth 5uoting at some length as he asks us to imagine what it was like to stand in the world as a citi6en o the medieval eraB I it is daytime" we see the air illed with light proceeding rom a living sun" rather as our own lesh is illed with blood proceeding rom a living heart. I it is night7time" we do not merely see a plain" homogeneous vault pricked with separate points o light" but a regional" 5ualitative sky" rom which irst o all the di erent sections o the great 6odiacal belt" and secondly the planets and the moon Feach o which is embedded in its own revolving crystal sphereG are raying down their comple0 in luences upon the earth" its metals" its plants" its animals and its men and women" including ourselves .... 'ur own health and temperament are 3oined by invisible threads to these heavenly bodies we are looking at.... .e turn our eyes on the sea 77 and at once we are aware that we are looking at one o the our elements" o which all things on earth are composed" including our own bodies. .e take it or granted that these elements have invisible constituents" or" as to that part o them which is incorporated in our own bodies" we e0perience them inwardly as the < our humors< which go to make up our temperament. FToday we still catch the lingering echo o this participation" when Shakespeare makes %ark Antony say o 9rutusB 222 The e$ements (o mi6ed in him! that Nature mi)ht stand up And say to a$$ the wor$d! This was a man2> ... A stone alls to the ground 77 we see it seeking the center o the earth" moved by something much more like desire than what we today call gravity.... I11I &ow" perhaps" we can catch our irst true glimpse o the $enaissance achievement. 2or us to enter into the medieval e0perience o the world would be rather like stepping rom the audience into a playB as participants sucked into the story 77 trapped inside our relationships to everything and everyone around us 77 we could no longer detach ourselves and view the events rom a distance.
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Conversely" what 9runelleschi and his contemporaries had to achieve was to shed those innumerable threads that bound them to their environment" and that made them both participants in the world and prisoners o itH they had to step out o the story. The world they observed was now in some sense latter 77 like a picture or movie 77 and they could even watch their own characters in a kind o distant" ob3ective ashion 77 the way" in our modern sub3ectivity" we are inclined to observe ourselves at ever greater removes. FI have already noted that our penchant or the pre i0 meta/ serves as one measure o this detachment.G It may" incidentally" seem odd to speak o the new world o <in7depth< perspective as latter than what went be ore" but it is necessary. As 9ar ield remarks" the perspectival rendering o a photograph couldn-t appear li elike to us i the world had not become photolike. That is" we are accustomed to having stepped out o the picture" and now all it re5uires is a certain abstract" mathematical depth to make an image look <solid.< Such is the only kind o depth our surroundings still retain or us once we have been e3ected rom their story. 9ut it is an e0traordinarily f$at sort o depth compared to the thickly te0tured matri0 o meaning that results rom being in the story. Which end of the telesco e do we look through ? I perspectival depth puts a new kind o distance between us and the world we survey" there is much in technology that cooperates with this process o alienation. $obert ). $omanyshyn points out that the invention o the telescope was" in the sense that counts" a symptom and cause o increasin) distance rather than a means or overcoming distance. ,alileo-s world7changing instrument pushed the moon arther rom us. .here once we elt ourselves within the moon-s sphere o in luence" we woke up to ind the moon ar" ar away" unconnected to ourselves. <#erhaps"< $omanyshyn says" <we had to travel to the moon in 1?;? because it had gone so ar away.< %uch the same can be said o other modern devicesB Technological instruments like the telescope and the microscope" the telephone and the television" the automobile and the airplane" are not merely or even primarily instruments which bridge distance. $ather" they are instruments called into being by the distance we have created" by the distance we have put between ourselves and the world. I14I This is no less true o more modern" computeri6ed communication devices. The compulsive e orts to <overcome the barriers between people"< the verbal torrents now looding online channels" and the reconceptuali6ation o these torrents as in ormation streams look very much like symptoms o the rapidly increasing distance between us. Having been e3ected rom the world-s story" we ind ourselves now e3ected even rom one another-s stories. 'ur lives no longer interpenetrateH words pass between us like inert ob3ects 77 like spacecra t hurled through space to the moon and back. So we throw more and more words across our new" ever more remote communication channels" hoping we might inally connect. 9ut the distance between us cannot be bridged in this way. Cike the telescope" our instruments o communication only increase the distance. 'ur real need is to rediscover what it means to participate in each other-s lives and worlds. This re5uires attention to precisely those potentialities o human e0change our e icient technology is teaching us to ignore. There is in our use o communication technology something o the double7sided gesture re erred to in the last chapterB we welcome a sa e distance even as we hope to overcome it. @irtual reality is" o course" the per ection o this gesture. .e speak o <immersive< virtual reality" but it is immersion in a <nothing< that is compounded o mathematical abstractions and cut o rom &ature-s law ulness. 4oes rea!ity have a f t reA As I remarked earlier" we all 'now that the world comes in perspective. *et this <simple< act was not noticed by highly skilled mathematicians and artists prior to the $enaissance. 'ur own ability to notice it says something about our e0perience o the world. !nlike our predecessors" we ind it natural to ilter abstractions rom the world and to let all the rest drop away. Such iltering was impossible to those who were intimately ensnared within the world" bound to it by a dense mesh o meaning. The abyss between sel and ob3ect was then much less isolating than it is today. 'ur own hard7won separation" as 9ar ield points out" has proven a valuable gi t 77 one never to be discarded. 9ut inso ar as it has metamorphosed into an e0perience o ourselves as wholly and absolutely cut o rom the world" it is a lie. 2urthermore" it is an unnecessary lie" or it is possible to en3oy the antithesis o sub3ective <south pole< and ob3ective <north pole< without proceeding to act as i the antithesis were a clean severance. That we do thus act and think cannot be doubted 77 and we guard our habits with power ul taboos. I you take this or an e0aggeration" 9ar ield would have you contemplate some such proposition as thisB if a$$ $ife! a$$ 'nowin) and co)ni1in) spirit! were removed from the universe! then nothin) e$se // no o+9ects // wou$d +e $eft either . &o sun" moon" earth" or stars. Such a thought taken seriously is 77 even or those who construct virtual realities 77 orbidden by what our minds have become. And yet" as 9ar ield reminds us" it would have been 3ust as impossible either to eel or think the proposition-s denia$ during the medieval era. Can we claim to have escaped the parochial conventions o our own era without irst understanding at least how the earlier e0perience was possi+$e" and then how and why it evolved into our own e0perience? #he world as virtual reality There is a corollary to this orgotten understanding 77 one desperately needed in our own dayB i we participate in the world" then we continue to bear responsi+i$ity or what the world becomes. In one conte0t 9ar ield puts it this wayB <i enough people go on long
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enough perceiving and thinking about the world as mechanism only" the macroscopic world will eventually +ecome mechanism only.< I18I Here is the danger o our ascination with virtual reality. :ust consider one actB the graphics programmer will almost certainly learn his entire trade without any pro essional e0posure to art history and the issues I have been vaguely sketching. All this is unnecessary" irrelevant. His <art< has become pure techni5ue" and the techni5ue is everything. How ar we are rom the broad" humane ideals o an earlier ageD Today" our innovations in the production o images seem controlled solely by the engineer-s giddy ascination with technical easibility. These innovations are immediately put to work by advertisers interested in their suasive powers and merchants interested in their entertaining powers. So we accept the bombardment o our senses and our psyches by images 77 printed" video" holographic" <virtually real< 77 with little evident concern or our own creative e ect upon the world when we participate in these ever more mechanical and mathematici6ed presentations o what once was sacred ob3ect and nourishing plenum o space. Cike the $enaissance viewers at 9runelleschi-s demonstration" we marvel at the new sensations we call <realistic< 77 but we do not consider the changing standard o reality lying behind our e0clamations. I 9runelleschi-s eat was both a discovery o what the world had already started to become and a harbinger o its uture determination" so" too" we should look or a double signi icance in our current e0perimentation with virtual reality. It is not hard to ind. .ell be ore the advent o high7per ormance computing" we had already accepted the reduction o the world to virtual reality. 2or we have long <known< that the entire phenomenal display within which we live out our lives is merely a lickering" sub3ective drama" thrown up upon some unidenti iable Fand philosophically illicitG screen in our brains. The <real< world o particles and ields has vanished into the physicist-s e5uations and theoretical constructs" which are not all that distinguishable rom the matrices and coordinates o the virtual reality programmer. .ho does not accept that the painter-s easel and canvas are illusions" manu actured o in initesimal particles and immense tracts o empty space? So everything disappears into the momentary" sub3ective glittering o insubstantial sur aces" a wraithlike dance uncertainly mirrored in the ephemeral electronic pulsations o our brains. .hen the world had already become so virtual" could the technology o virtual reality have been ar behind? .hat is the status o virtual reality? And what o the real world? I suppose it is evident enough on the ace o these terms that we-re not asking two unrelated 5uestions. 9ut i it-s a single 5uestion" the alternative responses are as divergent as they could beB will we continue one7sidedly upon the course irst set by 9runelleschi" reducing the world ever more to an abstract virtuality" content to manipulate point7coordinates with our mathematical matrices? 'r will we" rom our new and individual vantage points" learn again to put on the rea$ world as a garment 77 now" however" not only being warmed by it" but also warming it rom within through our own creative e orts? -eferences 1. (dgerton" 1?=8B 18?. +. .hite" 1?=+B 1+17+4. 1. ,regory" 1?;;B 1;4. 4. #ano sky" 1??1B 14. 8. Cited in ,ombrich" 1?;?B +4=. ;. #irenne" 1?8+. =. )eregowski" 1?=4. >. ,regory" 1?;;B 1?47?>. 2or a somewhat dated but valuable survey o the literature" see von Senden" 1?;A. ?. (dgerton" 1?=8B 4. 1A. 2or a physicist-s e0tended discussion o light in relation to the seeing sub3ect" re er to Ra3onc" 1??1. 11. (dwards" 1?=?. 1+. 9ar ield" 1?;8aB ?47?8. 11. 9ar ield" 1?;8aB =;7==.

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14. $omanyshyn" 1?>?B =1" ?=. $omanyshyn-s Techno$o)y As (ymptom and Dream contains a superb treatment o perspective as an e0pression o man-s changing relation to the world. 18. <Science and Puality"< in 9ar ield" 1?==bB 1>8. Can We #ranscend Com utation? (veryone seems to <know< that computers are one7sided. I we had to characteri6e computers as either logical or intuitive" we would say" <logical.< )o computers deal in in ormation or understanding? In ormation. Are they impersonal or personal? Impersonal. Highly structured or unstructured? Structured. Puantitative or 5ualitative? Puantitative. The problem is that we always seem to have a clear notion o the one side 77 the attributes we assign to the computer 77 while the other side remains suspiciously elusive despite representing our own <human dimension.< .hat sort o personal understanding is intuitive" unstructured" and 5ualitative? Can we distinguish it precise$y rom impersonal in ormation that is logical" structured" and 5uantitative? 9ut the 5uestion rings an alarm bell. It asks or a precise distinction" but precision itsel seems to be one o the terms we are re5uired to distinguish. A ter all" what do we mean by precision i not 5uantitative and logical e0actness? I this is so" however" then we appear to be stuckB clearly" we cannot distinguish precise$y between precision itsel and something incommensurable with precision" any more than we can visually distinguish between sight and smell. All we can do is contrast the precise with the imprecise" which leaves us irmly rooted to the scale o precision. And yet" the widespread impression o computational one7sidedness suggests that we are at least dimly aware o <another side o the story.< Can we lay hold o it? The conviction that we can underlies every sentence o this book. The issues" however" are comple0" and they con ound virtually every debate about computer capabilities. .hen a problem haunts us in this way" we can be sure that we-re up against a undamental 5uestion o meaning 77 very likely one that our deeply ingrained cultural biases or blind spots prevent us rom encompassing. It so happens that 'wen 9ar ield has spent some si0ty7 ive years circling and laying bare the particular biases at issue here. His irst" decisive insights applicable to the relation between computers and human beings date rom the late 1?+As 77 although he was not then writing" and so ar as I know has not since written" a+out computers. !n ortunately" I do not know o any others who have brought his work to bear upon arti icial intelligence and related disciplines. %y own e ort here is a modest oneB to suggest broadly and in ormally where 9ar ield-s work strikes most directly at current con usions. 1 2rief previe. As I have 3ust suggested" no one can strictly prove that the computer su ers decisive limitations relative to the human being. .e could capture the matter in a proo only i everything in the human being were assimilable to the language o proo 77 and there ore only i everything in the human being were <computable< 77 which would also imply that the proo was wrong. .e can" however" come to understand the computer-s limitations. Admittedly" this re5uires a considerable e ort. The computer brings to per ect completion the primary <dri t< o our civili6ation over the past ew hundred years. To see the computer in perspective" we need to get outside this dri t 77 one might also say" to get outside ourselves. 'r" to use the language o chapter 11" <In Summary"< we must come to ourselves 77 e0perience an awakening o what is most deeply human within us. .hat is most deeply human is inseparable rom meanin). !n ortunately" the meaning o <meaning< is the most ve0ed issue in all o arti icial intelligence and cognitive science. In dealing with meaning" we must come to terms with everything in the human being that does not compute. That is why this chapter is primarily about meaning. I you ind yoursel wondering along the way" <what does all this have to do with the computer?< then I suppose the presentation may be roughly on track. At the same time" I hope it is clear by the end o our 3ourney that meaning has a great deal to do with the $imitations o the computer. The problem" o course" is that I am no master o meaning" able to orchestrate its appearance in these pages. I society as a whole su ers rom its loss" so do I. 9ut I" like many others" am also aware o the loss" and the computer has been one o the primary instruments o my awareness. 9y considering computation in the purest sense" I have been able to begin grasping what a certain ew 77 and in particular 'wen 9ar ield 77 have been telling us about the nature o meaning. %eaning" you might say" is what computation is not. 9ut the two are not simple opposites. They cannot be" or then they would stand in a strictly logical 77 and there ore" computational 77 relationship" in which case meaning would have been assimilated to computation. .e can hardly e0pect the principle that <balances< logic and computation to be itsel reducible to logic and computation. 9ut all that" un ortunately" is itsel a highly abstract statement. Cet me substitute a metaphorB what I have attempted in this book is to outline the ho$e I ind in society and in mysel " about which I can say" <That-s where meaning must lie. %y meaninglessness gives shape to a void. 9y entering with a proper sensitivity into the meaninglessness" I can begin to sense the dark hollow it en olds. And in the darkness there begin to licker the irst" aint colors o meaning.<
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%oreover" it turns out that the powers o computation" with which so much o the world now resonates" shape themselves around the same void. The meaninglessness o my e0perience is" in act" the meaninglessness o a computational bent mani esting within my consciousness" in society" and 77 increasingly 77 in nature. The computer there ore may give us a gi tB the opportunity to recogni6e meaning as the void at the computer-s heart. And it likewise presents us with a challengeB to overcome the void" or rather ill it with our humanity. 1cc racy, tr th, an# &eaning In using language" we o ten strive or accurate communication. .e may also seek something like ullness o e0pression" richness o content" or the e0pansion o meaning. 9etween these two aims there is a kind o tension. Consider the ollowing sentencesB <The enemy is located at coordinates 8>.=8" 1=.+?.< <The worst enemy o reedom is the determined ma3ority.< <Cove your enemy.< In F1G accuracy is at a ma0imum. Assuming that both speaker and hearer have previously agreed on the enemy-s identity" the re erence here simply designates" without much ambiguity" <those same people.< And or the rest" the sentence does little more than speci y a precise location where those people may be ound. It is a model o accuracy. The second sentence raises 5uestions o meaning in a more insistent ashion than F1G. I the ma3ority-s reedom to act as a ma3ority is itsel a threat to reedom" then we need to sort out 3ust what we mean by < reedom.< 2reedom in what respect" and or whom? Similarly" what is the sense o <worst<? )oes it mean <most common<? <%ost power ul<? <%ost vile<? And how does <determined< 77 usually understood as a trait o individual psychology 77 apply to a collective? )espite these 5uestions" however" we pick up the rough sense o this second assertion without too much di iculty" or the thought is not altogether new to us" and we have learned what sorts o 5uali ications we must give to each term in order to achieve a coherent statement. Ask a group o educated people what the sentence means" and you would e0pect at least a minimal cohesion in the responses" which is a measure o our Fby no means e0tremeG accuracy in communication when we speak the sentence. So in F+G we have gained a certain richness o suggestion" a certain ullness and comple0ity o meaning" but have lost accuracy" compared to F1G. .ith F1G the interpretive di iculties have multiplied greatly" throwing severe obstacles in the way o accurate communication. FThis is especially the case i you imagine this e0hortation being voiced or the irst time within a given culture.G Isn-t the de inition o <enemy< being rudely turned on its head? I I am to treat my enemy like a loved one" what is the di erence between the two" and what is happening to language? And yet" this very saying has been received by numerous people with some degree o common understanding 77 although it is an understanding that may only be born o a sudden and illuminating e0pansion o commonly held" but inade5uate" meanings. It is not that we simply abandon the old meaning o <enemy< 77 we are not likely to orget the sting o recently elt animosities" or e0ample 77 but a new awareness o possibility now impinges upon that old meaning" placing things in a curious and intriguing light. Can it be that my enemies play a necessary 77 a disciplinary or educative 77 role in my li e? I I treat an enemy as a riend" do I bene it mysel as well as him? .hat will become o the enmity in that case? Although any group o people will likely generate various e0planations o the sentence Fthe potential or accuracy here is 5uite lowG" some individuals" at least" will con ess that they have ound the meaning to be both sublime and decisive or their lives. The sublimity is purchased" it appears" at the e0pense o the ease with which we can precisely communicate or e0plicate the thought. #he olarity of accuracy and meaning In assessing the three sentences above" we run into the same problem we encountered when asking about the computer-s one7 sidedness. )o we really have a clear idea o what we might contrast with accuracy? Sentence F1G may indeed seem" in its current ormulation" more <pro ound< than F1G" but doesn-t this 3ust suggest that we should elaborate the truth o F1G until it has become as straight orward as F1G? 2or while most o us can accept the goal o accuracy with un5uali ied enthusiasm" we don-t 5uite know what to do with the notion o meaning or ullness o e0pression. Isn-t the opposite o accuracy simply vagueness or u66iness o e0pression? And i my attempt to achieve deeper meaning results in diversity o interpretation" shouldn-t I try to clari y my thought 77 e0press it more precisely" so that its meaning is unambiguous? The strong urge today" in other words" is to seek greater accuracy" and we-re not 5uite sure what other challenge e0ists. I we could 3ust devise a language ree o all those ambiguities about <enemy"< < reedom"< <determined... then people could not so easily speak vaguely or imprecisely. It seems all too obvious" there ore" that the three sentences above re lect an increasing confusion o meaning 77 a loss o accuracy 77 and we are likely to leave the matter there. 9ut this will not do. In the irst place" it encourages us to dismiss as empty or shoddy much that is most noble and inspiring in human culture. In the second place" it leaves unanswered the 5uestion" .hat are we striving to be accurate about? 2or we already have languages nearly puri ied o all ambiguity 77 the various systems o symbolic logic and ormal mathematics are 3ust such languages.
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And the reason they are ree o ambiguity is that" by themselves" they cannot be a+out anything. .e can make them about something only by destroying their per ect precision. To apply mathematics" we must introduce some more or less unruly terms relating to the world. 9ut I am running ahead o mysel . Allow me to backtrack or a moment. It is true that vagueness is the opposite o accuracy. 9ut opposites are not what we are looking or. .hat we need in order to ind a counterpoint to accuracy is" as 9ar ield shows" the relation o po$ar contraries. I1I Think" or e0ample" o a bar magnet. Its north and south poles are not mere opposites. &either can e0ist without the other" and each penetrates the other. Cut o a section o the north end o the magnet" and you now have a second bar magnet with both north and south poles. It is impossible to isolate <pure northernness.< (ach pole e0ists" not only in opposition to the other" but also by virtue o the other. I you destroy one pole" you destroy the other as well 77 by demagneti6ing the bar. This points to what is" I believe" one o 9ar ield-s critical recognitions bearing on the computer-s limitationsB meanin) ?or e6pressiveness> and accuracy are po$ar contraries. At the moment I e0pect the statement to be more o a pu66le than a revelation. Indeed" as the pu66lements I have already cited suggest" the ideas at issue here prove e0traordinarily elusive. I hope" however" at least to hint at the li e within this statement. #he olar and the non olar It seems odd that so undamental an idea as polarity should ind so little employment in the various domains o human thought. 'dd" perhaps" but not surprising" or an age o logic and precision is much more com ortable with binary oppositions Fon or o " A or not7 AG than with this strange notion o mutual penetration. (ven in physics" the actual phenomenon o polarity Flike most other observable phenomenaG is scarcely dealt with as such" but rather is immediately reconceived in terms o <particles< and their mathematical characteristics. 2or our present purposes" however" it is the phenomenon o polarity itsel that we must invoke. I+I To begin with" then 77 and recalling the magnet-s polarity 77 meaning e0ists +y virtue of accuracy" and accuracy e0ists +y virtue of meaning. .e can neither be meaninglessly accurate nor accurately meaningless in any absolute sense. That is" accurate communication re5uires something meaning ul to be accurate a+out" and meaning ul e0pression re5uires some minimal degree o accuracy" lest nothing be e ectively e0pressed. As 9ar ield puts itB It is not much use having a per ect means o communication i you have nothing to communicate e0cept the relative positions o bodies in space 77 or i you will never again have anything new to communicate. In the same way it is not much use e0pressing yoursel very ully and per ectly indeed 77 i nobody can understand a word you are saying. 'ne way to approach an understanding o polarity is to consider what destroys it. I mathematics" taken in the strictest sense" looks like a language o per ect accuracy" it is also a language devoid o meaning. I1I 9ut mathematics is not thereby a kind o pure <northernness"< or in gaining its per ect accuracy and losing its potential or e0pressing meaning altogether" it has lost its essential linguistic nature. Can we really even speak o accuracy when a language gives us nothing a+out which to be accurate? Accuracy in communication can only e0ist in the presence o some meaningH otherwise" nothing is being communicated. 'ne can also imagine alling out o the polarity in the other direction. ' course" this is hardly the main risk in our day" but we can picture such an outcome in a rough way by considering the poet or seer who is struck dumb by his visionB overwhelmed by a sublime understanding" he remains inarticulate" lacking the analytical means to translate his revelation even into a poor verbal representation. Here again" then" there is no e ective use o language at all. So ar as we succeed in communicating" we remain within the comple0 interpenetration o polarity" playing accuracy against meaning" but allowing the absolute hegemony o neither. A uller meaning may be purchased at the e0pense o accuracy" and greater accuracy may constrict meaning. 9ut these are not mere opposites. I they were" the one would occur simply at the e6pense o the other. In a polarity" on the other hand" one pole occurs +y virtue of the other. An intensi ied north pole implies an intensi ied south poleH a weakened north pole implies a weakened south pole. The greatest minds are those capable o maintaining the most e05uisite polar tension" combining the deepest insight FmeaningG with the clearest analysis FaccuracyG. It is important to see that alling altogether out o the polarity into" say" number" typically occurs through a wea'enin) o the polarity. That is" although one may well emphasi6e the pole o accuracy in moving toward mere number" that very one7sidedness" by weakening the contrary pole" also weakens accuracy itsel so ar as accuracy is viewed as part o the dynamic o communication. There is ever less to be accurate about. The polarity ades into empty precision that communicates no content. In sumB when the polar tension is at its greatest 77 when both accuracy and e0pressiveness are at their highest pitch Fwhen the <magnet< is strongestG 77 we have the deepest and most precisely articulated meaning. This gives way" via inattention to one or the other pole" to a loss o clearly articulated meaning. It may on some occasions be necessary" there ore" to distinguish between the <empty precision< that results when we abandon the polarity or number" and the <accuracy< that" in cooperative tension with e0pressiveness" enables our discursive grasp and communication o meaning. <9ut what"< you may be asking with increasing impatience" <is meaning" anyway?< .e will turn toward that pole shortly" but only a ter looking in greater depth at the more amiliar pole o accuracy. *ou need to recogni6e" however" that all <what is< 5uestions in our culture are strongly biased toward the analytical. .e commonly say what something is by analy6ing it into parts" which we can
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then relate to each other by the precise laws o mathematics and logic. This bias will hardly help us to understand the polar contrary o analysis. In slightly di erent wordsB it is di icult to be precise about meaning or the simple reason that in meaning we have the polar contrary o precision. The best way to +e)in the search or meaning is by e0ercising your imagination against a blank 77 that is" by trying to recogni6e the shape o what is missing in the polarity so long as we recogni6e only accuracy. I a per ectly accurate language cannot give us the world 77 or any content at all 77 then what can give us the world? Here there is no possible theoretical answer. .e must begin to gain 77 or regain 77 the world in our own e0perience. The po!e of !ogic an# &athe&atics I we apply our concern or accuracy not to the details" but to the overall assertion o a statementH i we reduce the states about which we are accurate to twoH and i we call those states <truth< and < alsity< 77 we arrive at logic. Cike mathematics" logic is a kind o endpoint o abstraction" rom which all meaning is lost. I4I .e can illustrate this by looking at the meaning o logical truth. To say <%ary-s ather was killed in an automobile accident< is to a irm something very di erent rom <The light in the kitchen was on last night.< 9ut suppose we say instead" <It is true that %ary-s ather was killed in an automobile accident.< <It is true that the light in the kitchen was on last night.< The purely logical a irmation 77 that is" the meaning o <it is true that< 77 is e0actly the same in both these sentences. It is indeed the same in a potentially in inite number o sentences o the orm" It is true that F . . . G" where the e0pression in parentheses is an assertion o some sort. .hat it means to say that something is true does not depend on the parenthetic e0pression. So the bare assertion o the truth o something is 3ust about the most abstract statement we can makeH it abstracts the one common element rom a huge number o descriptions o radically di erent states o a airs. The logic o my assertion that someone was killed is identical to the logic o my assertion that the light was on. The very point o such assertions is to show <a something< that the subordinate clauses have in common 77 something we can abstract rom them e5ually 77 despite almost every possible di erence o meaning otherwise. That abstract something we call truth For alsity" as the case may beG. .e have seen that" given a pair o polar contraries" we cannot per ectly isolate either pole. It is impossible to slice o such a tiny sliver o the north end o a bar magnet that we end up with pure northernness. .e have either north and south interpenetrating each other" or no magnet at all. .e ound a similar relation between meaning and 5uantitative rigor" where mathematics represents the pursuit o accuracy to the point where the polarity is destroyed" leaving nothing a+out which to be accurate. And so it is also with meaning and truth. The attempt to con5uer the pole o <pure truth< results in the loss not only o meaning but o truth as well" or it makes no sense to speak o truth without content. That is why logicians o ten speak o the va$idity o a logical demonstration rather than its truth2 It is also why they use letters like p and & to stand or sentences" or propositions. 2or the content o a proposition does not enter into logical calculationsH the only thing that matters is that the propositions be either true or alse unambiguously. All true propositions 77 however diverse their apparent meanings 77 have e0actly the same meaning or the logicianH so do all alse propositions. It was .ittgenstein who remarked" <All propositions o logic mean the same thing" namely nothing.< (5uating ormal logic with mathematics" 9ertrand $ussell wroteB #ure mathematics consists entirely o assertions to the e ect that" i such and such a proposition is true o anythin)! then such and such another proposition is true o that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the irst proposition is really true" and not to mention what the anything is" o which it is supposed to be true. 9oth these points would belong to applied mathematics. .e start" in pure mathematics" rom certain rules o in erence" by which we can in er that if one proposition is true" then so is some other proposition. These rules o in erence constitute the ma3or part o the principles o ormal logic. .e then take any hypothesis that seems amusing" and deduce its conse5uences. %f our hypothesis is about anythin)! and not about some one or more particular things" then our deductions constitute mathematics. Thus mathematics may be de ined as the sub3ect in which we never know what we are talking about" nor whether what we are saying is true. I8I 'n the other hand" 3ust so ar as we apply our logic to the world and thereby re7introduce content 77 substituting terms with real meaning or our propositional p-s and &-s 77 we lose the logical purity o our truth. I " or e0ample" I say" <All men are mortal"< you might ask about the de inition o <man<B what distinguishes man rom not7man in human evolution? 'r" what distinguishes man rom machine? To clari y such 5uestions I will be driven 77 so long as I am seeking logical purity 77 to de ine my terms in an ever narrower way. As one can already recogni6e in the sciences o biology and arti icial intelligence" the word <man< begins to disappear into
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abstract technicality. Terms like <in ormation"< <algorithm"< <genetic encoding"< <organi6ation"< <replication"< and <program< come to the ore. This tendency is inevitable given the a orementioned 5uest or logical purity. .e have to begin 5uali ying ourselves in an e ort to eliminate ambiguityB this term is to be taken only in such7and7such a respect" and that term in a di erent respect 77 and by the time we regain a+so$ute logical precision Fi we ever doG" we will again have reduced the terms o our proposition to the purely abstract p-s and &-s o the logician. .e will have lost whatever it was we started out to say. 2or the only statements that remain un5uali iedly true re)ard$ess o how their terms are taken are statements whose content has allen out o the picture. All concrete" meaning ul content resists the absolutism and universalism o logic. A revailing one/sidedness I hope this predicament is by now becoming amiliar to you. The drive or logical precision consumes and destroys itsel i it does not remain in creative tension with something else. 2urthermore" because our culture" with its scienti ic and technological mindset" tends strongly to vest authority in the logical and 5uantitative processes o thought" the <something else< remains obscure and mysterious 77 always suspect to the properly tough7minded investigator. .hat results is a compulsive striving toward a kind o absolute vacuity. There are many symptoms o this striving" the primary one being the entire history o modern science. Having started out to e0plain the world" we ind ourselves now Fin the <hardest< o sciences 77 physicsG struggling to igure out what our most sophisticated e5uations mean 77 i they mean anything at all. %any are there ore content to dismiss the 5uestion o meaning altogether" drawing su icient satis action rom their ability to ashion contrivances that wor'. This willingness to be content with things that work rather than with understanding is reminiscent o the logician-s commerce with validity rather than truth. It is the end result o an e ort to reduce the polarity to a single pole. A precise" two7valued system F<it works< and <it doesn-t work<G replaces the drive to penetrate phenomena with human consciousness and so to understand. .e eel com ortable with precision and the abstraction it re5uires. *ou might say they are our destiny. (omethin) has led us 5uite naturally down a path whereby our meanings have vanished into e5uations" bottom lines" statistics" and computer programs. The causes o that historical dri t 77 whatever they are 77 have proven relentless and all but irresistible. It should not surprise us" there ore" i our e ort to grasp hold o meaning in the ollowing sections proves an uphill struggle. *et without such struggle we may eventually ind our consciousness constricted to a vanishing point. 2or the polarity between meaning and accuracy is also 77 within the individual consciousness 77 a polarity between ullness and clarity. And we run the risk o becoming" inally" absolutely clear about nothing at all. Meaning an# !ogic I cannot tell you what meaning is. &or can anyone else. Cra6ily" this leads to the common denial that meaning is worth bothering about at all. The physicist Hans Christian von 9aeyer relates a conversation he had with Claudia )enke Tesche" a scientist e0ploring problems o 5uantum mechanics. The 5uestion o the meaning o her work arises" and the conversation takes an all too amiliar turnB <3eanin) is a philosophical word"< she shrugs" and then turns her attention to a leaky vacuum pump. I;I I said <cra6ily< because" while it is certainly true that meaning is not some new kind o thin)" it is a prere5uisite or there to be any things at all. (very attempt to arrive at the things o our world 77 or the things o our theories 77 starting rom the <pure northernness"< the conceptual barrenness" o mathematical or logical abstraction never gets as ar as step one. .e simply cannot meaning ully speak e0cept by startin) with meaning. %eaning cannot be de ined without being assumed" or surely I cannot de ine meaning with meaningless terms. And i I employ meaning ul terms in my de inition" then I assume that you are already capable o grasping meaning. Similarly" no one can de ine de inition or someone who doesn-t already know what a de inition isH nor can anyone demonstrate the principles o logic without relying upon logic. These <boundary problems< o cognition point us toward a crucial considerationB something in cognition <stands on its own< and is sel 7apparent. !ltimately" the only basis or knowing anything is that it has become transparent" or obvious" and the only way to discover what it is or something to be obvious is to e0perience its obviousness < rom the inside.< 'ne then begins to live within the sel 7supported nature o thinking. The alternative is to try to understand thinking in terms o the various ob3ects o thought 77 brain" computer" or whatever. 9ut this e ort is utile" or the ob3ects are only given by thinking" and there ore presuppose what they are supposed to e0plain. <The seen is not the cause o seeing" but the result o seeing.< I=I .e cannot" as 9ar ield e0plains" even begin with ourselves as sub3ects con ronting a world o ob3ectsB It is not 3usti iable" in constructing a theory o knowledge" to take sub3ectivity as <given.< .hy? 9ecause" i we e0amine the thinking activity care ully" by subse5uent re lection on it" we shall ind that in the act o thinking" or knowing" no such distinction o consciousness e0ists. .e are not conscious o ourselves thinking about something" but simply o something .... Conse5uently" in
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thinking about thinking" i we are determined to make no assumptions at the outset" we dare not start with the distinction between sel and not7sel H or that distinction actually disappears every time we think. I>I That is" both sub3ect and ob3ect are determinations given by thinking. They presuppose thinking" which there ore cannot be classi ied as either sub3ective or ob3ective. Where does logic come from ? 'ur more immediate concern here is with the relation between pure logic 77 which has allen out o the polarity o accuracy and e0pressiveness 77 and the more or less clear meaning that is borne by the polarity. The irst logicians had no rules o logic to go by" and yet they teased out the logical principles inherent in the received system o meanings. Clearly" they didn-t do this by consciously applying the very rules o logic they were trying to derive. Cogic does not come irst in our knowing. And yet" logical structure is already implicit within the purest o meanings. 'ur meanings are mutually articulated with each other in a manner that is given by the meanings themselves" and we can there ore begin to abstract rom these meanings certain empty" universal orms" or possibilities o articulation. These possibilities are what we know as logic. The grasp o meaning" then" precedes" and becomes the basis or" the eventual elaboration o logic as such. .e do not need the rules o logic in order to apprehend meaning. $ather" apprehending meaning with ever greater accuracy is what enables us to e0tract the rules o logic. Thinking logically is what we ind we have done when we have success ully struggled to remain aith ul to our meanings. To be logical in a concrete sense Fthat is" within the polar relationshipG does not mean to act according to an abstract logical calculus" but rather to preserve the coherence o my meanings 77 to put those meanings on display without demeaning them by introducing distortions. I I must invoke logic against an opponent in argument" it is not to introduce some new understanding" but rather Fas 9ar ield notesG to bring him to his sensesB he has somehow abandoned the intrinsic necessities o his own meanings. He will recogni6e his error only when he enters more consciously and with greater clarity into those meanings. To pu66le over the logical 3usti ication o logic" the de inition o de inition" and the meaning o meaning is only to make clear the boundaries o our normal way o thinking" which is governed by a radical slide toward the pole o logic and abstraction. The only way across those boundaries lies in overcoming one7sidedness" which in turn re5uires not merely thinking a+out things" but e0periencing our own thinking 77 including its 5ualitative aspects. &ot much in our culture trains us to do thisH we ocus upon the <ob3ects< given to us by our thinking rather than upon the thinking itsel 77 until" inally" some are suggesting that thinking o ers us nothing to e0perience. I we ever succeed in becoming per ect logic machines" there will indeed be nothing le t to e0perience. Ho. #oes &eaning ariseA As 9ar ield shows in a ascinating paper" I?I the creation o meaning is a unction o something rather like untruth. #hilosophers have sometimes claimed that sentences like the ollowing are tautologiesB <The earth is a planet.< That is" the predicate simply repeats a truth already inherent in the sub3ect. I we truly know the meaning o <earth"< then we also know that earth is a planet. So the remark tells us nothing new. 'n the very ace o it" the sentence purports to do no more than de ine <earth< 77 it tells us what earth is 77 so that i we already know the de inition o <earth< 77 i the terms o the sentence are rom the start precisely accurate or us 77 we learn nothing. Again" mathematics and logic o er the most e0treme e0ample. .hen we write the e5uation" +S+T4 the e5uals sign tells us that what is on the right side o the e5uation is nothing other than" or di erent rom" what is on the le t side o the e5uation. That is what the sign says2 I we clearly understand <+ S +"< then we already see that it is the same as <4.< There is not some new content in <4< that was missing in <+ S +.< 9ut imagine you are a contemporary o Copernicus hearing or the irst time" <the earth is a planet.< &ot only is this no tautology" it may well strike you as plainly alse. 2or in all likelihood you view the earth as a center around which both the i0ed and wandering stars revolve. *ou take or granted the undamental di erence in 5uality between earthly and heavenly substance. The e0isting meanings o your words do not allow the truth o what you have 3ust heard. And yet" the time may come when you do accept the statement as true. I we look or the crucial moments separating your unbelie rom your belie " what do we see? *ords chan)in) their meanin)s2 Speci ically" the meanings o both <earth< and <planet< change dramatically. And not 3ust these two words" but an entire tapestry o meaning begins to shi t its pattern and te0ture. .e are not dealing here with the sudden recognition o a new < act"< but rather with the slowly evolving background against which all possible acts take their shapes. FIn considering the sentence <Cove your enemy< we saw a similar trans ormation o meaning.G
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#he role of meta hor Against the original background o meaning" to say <the earth is a planet< was in some respects to voice a bold metaphor 77 rather as i someone today said" <every star is a divine being" vestured in light.< ,iven the straight orward" literal meanings o <earth< and <planet< in Copernicus- time" the statement was untrueH but" as in every metaphor" one must look throu)h the primary meaning 77 the literal untruth 77 in order to grasp the intended" emergent meaning. In this case the emergent meaning had partly to do with a certain principle o movement common to both earth and the planetsH earth was $i'e the planets" at least with regard to its motion around the sun. 9ut" o course" this comparison could not immediately recast the entire network o meanings bound up with <earth< and <planet.< I1AI The statement remained metaphorical 77 a revealing lie 77 at irst. It would take an e0tended period or its metaphorical thrust to be generali6ed and become a matter o routine literalness 77 that very period" in act" marking the transition rom medieval consciousness to our modern" scienti ic mentality. The di erences between the medieval and the modern mind are striking" to say the least. And the pathway rom the one to the other is paved with liesD .e gain our new meanings by using words to state alsehoods 77 but alsehoods that are suggestive" and through which we are pointed to new possibilities o meaning. I &ewton had not been allowed to <misuse< )ravitas! could modern physics have arisen? 2or in his day the word meant something like the human e0perience o heaviness 77 not some abstract principle o universal attraction 77 and it was still tinged with a sense o <desire.< There is a very great di erence between the idea o Fto borrow Herbert 9utter ield-s wordsG <a stone aspiring to reach its natural place at the center o the universe 77 and rushing more ervently as it came nearer home 77 and the idea o a stone accelerating its descent under the constant orce o gravity.< I11I &ewton-s use o )ravitas to describe the orce o gravitation was metaphorical 77 untrue on its aceH it made no more sense" given the received meaning o )ravitas! than we would make today i we e0plained the moon-s revolution as resulting rom its desire or the earth. And yet" as with many metaphors" it did make sense when one looked throu)h the alse statements and" with their essential aid" began to grasp the intended FnewG meanings. Assisted by alsehoods" one apprehended Fperhaps dimly at irstG something not literally stated" thereby allowing the meanings o one-s terms to shi t and realign themselves with this metaphorical intent. These new meanings" once they are more ully laid hold o and analy6ed" enable the statement o truths that again tend toward the literal and accurate Fand there ore toward the tautological" the uninterestingG" since they no longer re5uire so great a <misuse< o language. .hat we discover when we turn to the polar dynamic 77 the interaction between accuracy and e0pressiveness during the actual use o language 77 is this continual e0pansion and contraction o meaning. .hen I use a new and revealing metaphor" or e0ample" I orce static truths into motion" changing" by this <shi t o truth"< the meaning o one or more o my terms. This meaning" however" is now less e0plicitly displayed" less accessible 77 and will remain so until it is penetrated and articulated with the aid o accurate analysis. .hen" on the other hand" I analy6e and clari y meaning" I narrow it down" distinguish its acets" render it progressively literal and immobile until Fi I push the analysis ar enoughG it is lacking nearly all content 77 a it term or logical manipulation. (ther/saying A metaphor is one e0ample o what 9ar ield calls <other7saying<B saying one thing Fthat must be received as a ictionG" and intending by it a second thing. .hatever else we claim about such statements" we cannot call them tautologies" or on their ace they are not even true. &evertheless" they are re5uently meaning ul. I do not think we can say that meaning" in itsel " is either true or untrue. All we can sa ely say is" that that 5uality which makes some people sayB <That is sel 7evident< or <that is obviously true"< and which makes others sayB <That is a tautology"< is precisely the 5uality which meaning hasn4t got. I1+I %eaning" then" is born o a kind o iction" yet it is the content" or raw material o truth. And it is important to reali6e that other7 saying 77 or e0ample" symbol" metaphor" and allegory 77 is not a mere curiosity in the history o language. As 9ar ield stresses on so many occasions" virtually our entire language appears to have originated with other7saying. Anyone who cares to nose about or hal an hour in an etymological dictionary will at once be overwhelmed with Je0amplesK. I don-t mean out7o 7the7way poetic words" I mean 5uite ordinary words like $ove! +ehaviour! mu$tip$y! shrewd$y and so on .... To instance two e0treme cases" the words ri)ht and wron) appear to go back to two words meaning respectively <stretched< and so <straight"< and <wringing< or <sour.< And the same thing applies to all our words or mental operations" conceivin)! apprehendin)! understandin).... I 11I &or do we gain much by appealing to the physical sciences or e0ceptions. As 9ar ield elsewhere points out" I14I even <high7 sounding Mscienti ic- terms like cause! reference! or)anism! stimu$us! etc." are not miraculously e0empt< rom the rule that nearly all linguistic symbols have a igurative origin. 2or e0ample" <stimulus< derives rom a Catin word designating an ob3ect used as a spur or a goad. Similarly or such words as <absolute"< <concept"< <potential"< <matter"< < orm"< <ob3ective"< <general"< <individual"< <abstract.< The irst thing we observe" when we look at language historically" is that nearly all words appear to consist o ossili6ed metaphors" or ossili6ed <other7saying< o some sort. This is a act. It is not a brilliant apercu o my own" nor is it an interesting theory which is disputed or even discussed among etymologists. It is the sort o thing they have or break ast. I18I
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In sumB when we look at language" we ind it continually changingH our discovery o acts and truths occurs only in creative tension with an evolution o meanings that continually trans orms the acts and truths. 'utside this tensive relation we have no acts" and we have no truthsH there is only the 5uest or a kind o disembodied validity in which Fto recall $ussell-s wordsG <we never know what we are talking about" nor whether what we are saying is true< 77 or else the dumbstruck 5uest or ine able visions. The emergence o meaning is always associated with what" rom a i0ed and strictly logical standpoint" appears as untruth. And it is 3ust this meaning with which" as knowers" we embrace the world. The po!ar #yna&ic of &eaning 'ther7saying invites us to recogni6e signi icant resemblances and analogies between things. The irst person to speak o a <charged atmosphere< in describing interpersonal tension discovered a common something between static electricity and human e0perience. The demand or unity driving such discoveries is" according to 9ar ield" <the proper activity o the imagination.< I1;I Symbol and analysis The imagination" in 9ar ield-s view" makes meaning. Cogical consistency" on the other hand" is the outcome o rational analysis. In the interaction between imagination and rational analysis we see the polar contraries" meaning and accuracy" brought into mutual play. The imagination is at work" albeit in less than ull consciousness" when we dream. )reams are ull o other7saying 77 symbols" images that signi y this! but also that2 <The dark igure was my riend :ohn" yet it was not really him.< Then I wake up and ana$y1e the dreamB the man" it seems" was a combination o my riend :ohn and someone I met at the store today who intrigued me 77 and perhaps also he had something to do with a certain threatening igure rom past dreams .... So whereas the dream itsel presented a single" multivalent image" I now have several de inite" unambiguous igures" standing side7by7side in my intellect. Analysis splits up meaning" breaks apart unitiesB <this means that2< Cogic tells us that a thing cannot be both A and not7A in the same respect and at the same timeH it wants to separate not7A rom A. It wants to render its terms clear and precise" each with a single" narrow meaning. The arrangement and rearrangement o such univocal terms in a series o propositions is the unction o $o)ic! whose ob3ect is elucidation and the elimination o error. The poetic I1=I has nothing to do with this. It can only mani est itsel as fresh meanin)7 it operates essentially within the individual term" which it creates and recreates by the magic o new combinations .... 2or in the pure heat o poetic e0pression 3u0taposition is ar more important than either logic or grammar. Thus" the poet-s relation to terms is that o maker. I1>I /////// And againB Cogical 3udgements" by their nature" can only render more e6p$icit some one part o a truth a$ready imp$icit in their terms2 9ut the poet makes the terms themselves. He does not make 3udgements" there oreH he only makes them possible 77 and only he makes them possible. I1?I The imagination creates new meaning by other7saying" but cannot elucidate that meaning" cannot draw out its implications and delineate its contours. $ational analysis brings us precision and clarity by breaking the meaning into separate pieces" but progressively loses thereby the content" the revelatory potency" o the original image. It is not that a metaphor or symbol holds together a number o logically con licting meanings. The man in the dream was not a logical contradiction. He was who he was. 'ne can e0perience and employ the most pregnant symbolic images 5uite harmoniously. The contradictions are arti acts o the analytical stance itsel . They appear when we are no longer content with the imaginative unity we once e0perienced" but want to c$eave it with the intellect" resolving it into elements we can relate to already e0isting knowledge. It is only when the unity is shattered by such analysis that the contradictions between the parts appear. And analysis" once under way" wants to proceed until there are no contradictions le t 77 which inally occurs when all meaning" all unities" have disappeared. So long as we have meaning" we have a challenge or logical analysis" which is to say that every imaginative unity stands ready to be broken apart by analysis" immediately revealing contradictions between the now too stiff$y re$ated fra)ments of the ana$ysis2 Holding the balance However one7sided the tendencies o our age" we cannot say that either imagination or rational analysis is more essential than the other. All understanding is born o their polar interaction. The imagination is orever discovering new unities" while rational analysis is orever dissecting them. In the actual advance o understanding" there is a continual alternation between these principles. .hen the breakdown o the image yields contradiction" we can overcome the contradiction in either o two directionsB by destroying all meaning and ending up with a set o empty logical structures" or else by returning to a wholly unanaly6ed unity" whether o the original image or a new one. In actual act" we are likely to see innumerable partial movements in both directions" and understanding is another name or the resulting polar dynamic. The unanaly6ed image may be a per ect unity" but it is not <on display< 77 it is not available to our discursive mental operations. 9y contrast" analysis hands over elements o the image to the discursive intellect 77 sacri icing some o the given imaginal signi icance in the process.
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9ut today we too readily ignore that you can neither start with the empty orms o logic in considering any issue" nor finish off an issue with logic. An ironic misconception underlies the re5uently heard claim" <it is logically certain.< I the matter is indeed logically certain" then the speaker is no longer talking about anything. 2or i what he says has any meaning at all" that meaning is carried by other7saying 77 by imaginative unities not yet ully reduced by logical analysis. The attempt to honor the po$e of accuracy over that of meanin) does no more than )uarantee us the sha$$owest meanin)s possi+$e2 It is said that any conclusion o an argument running counter to a theorem o the logical calculus is wrong. Surely this is correctH but it is not particularly help ul. The problem is knowing when a conclusion really does violate the calculus. .hat about <the earth is a planet"< spoken by a contemporary o Copernicus? I we consider only the then7received meanings o <earth< and <planet"< there is indeed a violation o the logical calculus. 9ut the sentence also suggests newly emergent meanings" not yet clearly understood. .hich is the rea$ meaning? I the logicians turn their attention to such a problem" they will likely resolve it 3ust when the new meanings have become so stable" conventional" and thin that there is no longer a pressing issue o logicality or truth ulness. 9y the time you have reduced your sub3ect to terms where the logical calculus can be applied mechanically and with ull con idence 77 e0ternally" as it were" and not intrinsically in the struggle to be aith ul to your meanings 77 by then the sub3ect itsel is likely to have become so clear on its ace as to re5uire no such application. #he bias of our age I said earlier that the meaning o meaning would prove di icult to capture. This di iculty re lects what we have become. It is no accident that the central issue in arti icial intelligence is the relation between computation and meaningH or that making human labor meaning ul is the decisive challenge or modern industryH or that the relation between e5uation" model" and meaning has bedeviled modern scienceH or that in general our age has become known as the age o meaninglessness. %eaning" it seems" was simply <given< to those o earlier eras. 2or us" absence o meaning is the given" and its rediscovery re5uires a sometimes pain ul inner movement in opposition to the prevailing spirit o our time. 2urther" that movement must be our ownH its sole impetus can never be received rom without. .hile meaning is suggestible" it <can never be conveyed rom one person to another .... (very individual must intuit meaning or himsel " and the unction o the poetic is to mediate such intuition by suitable suggestion.< I+AI .hat I can convey to you with absolute idelity 77 although it is idelity to no7 content" nothing 77 is only the empty proposition o logic or e5uation o mathematics. The manipulation o the products o analysis is in some respects a mechanical task. The genesis o new meaning is altogether a di erent matter" and its challenge is not o ten set be ore us today. In listening to others" do I remain alert or those <strange connections< suggesting meanings I have not yet grasped? 'r am I readier to analy6e and tear down" based upon my armament o secure propositions already in hand? The e ort to comprehend what we have hereto ore been incapable o seeing 77 rather than simply to e0tract the implications o our e0isting knowledge 77 always re5uires the modi ication o one or more o our termsB the creation o new meaning. 9ar ield 5uotes 2rancis 9aconB 2or that knowledge which is new" and oreign rom opinions received" is to be delivered in another orm than that that is agreeable and amiliarH and there ore Aristotle" when he thinks to ta0 )emocritus" doth in truth commend him" where he saith" %f we sha$$ indeed dispute! and not fo$$ow after simi$itudes! etc. 2or those whose conceits are seated in popular opinions" need only but to prove or disputeH but those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions" have a double labourB the one to make themselves conceived" and the other to prove and demonstrate. So that it is o necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes and translations to e0press themselves. I+1I In an age o abstract and logic7dominated learning" it is easy to orget that all true advance o understanding re5uires us imaginatively to conceive what is not currently conceivable 77 by means o other7saying. (instein-s amous e5uations were not the cause o his insights" but the resultB he had irst to become a poet" playing metaphorically with the received" much too logically worn down and well7de ined notions o time and space" mass and energy. Cesser scientists ailed to gain the same insights because they already knew too precisely. Their terms were rigorous and accurate. As 9acon put it" they could only <prove or dispute< in terms o their e0isting" systemati6ed knowledge. So, then ... .hat is &eaningA I still cannot tell you. %eaning is not a <what.< It is what makes all <whats< possible" giving them content. 'ur di iculty in grappling with it re lects the culture-s one7sidedness. .hen rational argument is one-s only legitimate" tough7minded weapon" it becomes nearly impossible to lay hold o meaning" or meaning cannot be argued. And yet" as we have 3ust seen" all but the most prosaic arguments re5uire the establishment and recognition o new meaning. .hat I can do" however" is to o er some inal" unsystematic observations to stimulate urther thought. These will tend toward the aphoristic" and will partly serve to acknowledge 3ust a ew o the issues prominent in 9ar ield-s work. 2or an e0tended treatment o these issues" however" I can only re er you to that work itsel .
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/////// %eaning is whatever 9ar ield-s History in -n)$ish *ords is a+out. I suspect that or many people this semantic history will oddly present itsel as being about nothing much at all. 9ut when the oddity serves as a healthy 5uestion mark and a stimulus or urther e0ploration" one eventually enters a rich world o meanings against which the imagination can be e0ercised. Cikewise" all sensitive e0ploration o oreign cultures leads to the appreciation o strange meanings and" through this appreciation" to a re ined sense or meaning itsel . /////// %eaning is whatever the dictionary is not about. I am only being slightly acetious. <The meaning o a word is abstract" 3ust in so ar as it is de inable. The de inition o a word" which we ind in a )ictionary 77 inasmuch as it is not conveyed by synonym and metaphor" or illustrated by 5uotation 77 is its most abstract meaning.< I++I I we look at the polarity o language" it is immediately evident that the attempt to de ine 77 the 5uest or a <dictionary de inition< 77 is driven almost wholly rom the pole o accuracy" and there ore tends to eliminate meaning. %eaning" you will recall" <is not a hard7 and7 ast system o re erence<H it is not de inable" but only suggestible" and re5uires the poetic or its suggestion. The strict dictionary de inition" by contrast" attempts to tie down" to eliminate any ambiguity previously imported by the poetic. And 3ust so ar as such a de inition tries to be <scienti ic"< it tends to su er a steady reduction until inally it knows only particles in motion. Pualities disappear. The resulting" purely abstract term <is a mark representing" not a thing or being" but the act that identical sensations have +een e0perienced on two or more occasions.< These little billiard balls over here are the same as those over there. Abstract thinking is" in the e0treme" countingB we count instances" but do not try to say instances o what. /////// Here is part o a dictionary de inition or <water<B the li5uid that ... when pure consists o an o0ide o hydrogen in the proportion o + atoms o hydrogen to one atom o o0ygen and is an odorless" tasteless" very slightly compressible li5uid which appears bluish in thick layers" ree6es at A degrees C" has a ma0imum density at 4 degrees C and a high speci ic heat.... &ow this serves very well to provide a certain kind o re erence" a pointer into a comple0 mesh o scienti ic abstractions" in which <water< holds a de inite place. .hat it does not do well at all is give us the concrete meanin) o the word in its actual usage 77 that is" when the word is used outside the scienti ic te0tbook or laboratory" or when it was used any time be ore the last ew centuries. It gives me little i any assistance in determining whether a particular use o the word <water< in a poem" personal memoir" news story" or 5ualitative scienti ic study makes any sense. It conveys nothing o that water we en3oy while swimming" washing" drinking" ishing" walking in the rain" or watching storm7driven waves. It misses the wetness" gleam" undulation" deep stillness" engul ing horror" wild power" musicality" and grace. It does not tell me anything about my actual e0perience o water in the world. All this" o course" will be admitted. 9ut what will not so readily be admitted is that these e0periences contain a good deal o what <water< rea$$y means! which is also to sayB what it actua$$y is2 'ur di iculty with this thought" one might almost say" is the de ining characteristic 77 the crippling ailure 77 o our day. It is related to our insistence upon a world o ob3ects bearing absolutely no inner relation to the human being who observes them. /////// As the maker o meaning" imagination has received considerable attention during this past century 77 although scarcely rom the scienti ic side. 9ar ield mentions three eatures o imagination concerning which there has been a <considerable measure o agreement<B I+1I Imagination gives us a relation between whole and parts di erent rom mere aggregation. !nknown in classical physics" this relation is <not altogether unknown in the organic realm. It has been said that imagination directly apprehends the whole as Mcontained- in the part" or as in some mode identical with it.< The hologram gives us an approach to this thought rom the side o physics. Imagination <apprehends spatial orm" and relations in space" as Me0pressive- o nonspatial orm and nonspatial relations.< 2or e0ample" in the human countenance we can read various interior relations o thought" eeling" and intention. Imagination operates prior to the kind o perception and thought that has become normal today. It unctions <at a level where observed and observer" mind and ob3ect" are no longer 77 or are not yet 77 spatially divided rom one anotherH so that the mind" as it were" becomes the ob3ect or the ob3ect becomes the mind.< /////// As its name suggests" the imagination deals in images. 9ar ield has this to say about images in generalB
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It is characteristic o images that they interpenetrate one another. Indeed" more than hal the art o poetry consists in helping them to do so. That is 3ust what the terms o logic" and the notions we employ in logical or would7be logical thinking" must not do. There" interpenetration becomes the slovenly con usion o one determinate meaning with another determinate meaning" and there" its proper name is not interpenetration" but e5uivocation.... I+4I /////// .e may think that our good" scienti ic terms are somehow sa ely" solidly" material in meaning. And yet" as 9ar ield points out" <It is 3ust those meanings which attempt to be most e0clusively material ... which are also the most generali6ed and abstract 77 i.e. remote rom reality.< I+8I To see this more clearly" we can contrast abstract with concrete meanings. <Concrete< does not mean <material.< $ather" the concrete combines the perceptual and the conceptual 77 which together make the thing what it is. To illustrate a ully concrete de inition" 9ar ield asks his reader to imagine a single word conveying what we would have to translate as <I cut this lesh with 3oy in order to sacri ice.< Such a word would not be highly abstract" and what saves it rom being so is not only its particularity but also the act that its re erence to outer activity is su used with inner signi icances. 9ut what about our abstract verb" <to cut<? It tries to be wholly material by removing all the particular signi icances 3ust re erred toH but how material is something that has become so abstract you cannot even picture it? The pure act o cutting 77 as opposed to particular" concrete acts bearing within themselves the interiority o the actor 77 is no more material than a <tree< that is not some particular tree. .ords that we try to make e0clusively material inally go the same way as <things< in the hands o the particle physicistB they vanish into abstraction. /////// I we can-t give concrete de initions" neither can we de ine <concrete.< The concrete brings us to meaning itsel " and to <the 5ualitative reality which de inition automatically e0cludes.< 9ar ield againB I I were to bring the reader into my presence and point to an actual lump o gold" without even opening my mouth and uttering the word )o$d 77 then" this much at least could be said" that he would have had rom me nothing that was not concrete. 9ut that does not take us very ar. 2or it does not ollow that he would possess anything but the most paltry and inchoate knowledge o the whole reality 77 <gold.< The depth o such knowledge would depend entirely on how many he might by his own activity have intuited o the innumerable concepts" which are as much a part o the reality as the percepts or sense7data" and some o which he must already have made his own be ore he could even observe what I am pointing to as an <ob3ect< at all .... 'ther concepts 77 already partially abstracted when I name them 77 such as the gleaming" the hardness to the touch" the resemblance to the light o the sun" its part in human history" as well as those contained in the dictionary de inition 77 all these may well comprise a little" but still only a very little" more o the whole meaning. I+;I /////// And againB The ull meanings o words are lashing" iridescent shapes like lames 77 ever7 lickering vestiges o the slowly evolving consciousness beneath them. I+=I /////// 9ar ield mentions how" in metaphor" poets have repeatedly related death" sleep" and winter" as well as birth" waking" and summer. These in turn are o ten treated as symbols o the inner" spiritual e0periences o dissolution or rebirth. He then o ers these observationsB &ow by our de inition o a <true metaphor"< there should be some older" undivided <meaning< rom which all these logically disconnected" but poetically connected ideas have sprung. And in the beauti ul myth o )emeter and #ersephone we ind precisely such a meaning. In the myth o )emeter the ideas o waking and sleeping" o summer and winter" o li e and death" o mortality and immortality are all lost in one pervasive meaning. This is why so many theories are brought orward to account or the myths. The naturalist is right when he connects the myth with the phenomena o nature" but wrong i he deduces it solely rom these. The psychoanalyst is right when he connects the myth with <inner< Fas we now call themG e0periences" but wrong i he deduces it solely rom these. %ythology is the ghost o concrete meaning. Connections between discrete phenomena" connections which are now apprehended as metaphor" were once perceived as immediate realities. As such the poet strives" by his own e orts" to see them" and to make others see them" again. I+>I Co&p ters, !ogic, an# &eaning 9ar ield-s work on meaning and polarity can scarcely be ignored in any discussion o the nature and capability o computers. A serious and widespread attempt to reckon with his insights would undoubtedly trans orm many disciplines relating to computers. To the potential literature waiting to be written" I can here contribute only a ew concluding pages in which I try to suggest three or our basic directions in which the discussion might be carried by those who are interested.
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#he destruction of olarity The drive toward arti icial intelligence can be seen most ruit ully as a drive to escape the polar dynamic o meaning. It is" moreover" a realistic campaign" inasmuch as we can engrave the nondynamic" inished orms o intelligence upon physical stu . And i we lose our awareness o all but these empty structures 77 i the present" dynamic act o thinking drops rom our view 77 then we can easily be convinced that mechanical manipulation o the structures is what thinking actually is. All this hinges upon our loss o meaning" or meaning is what does not reside in those structures. I we accept and enter into the living terms o the polarity" I believe we will reach two conclusionsB F1G there is no limit upon the intelligence we can embed within computers" since there is no limit upon how ar the rational principle can proceed in its analysis o any given meaningH and F+G since this intelligence is always a <dead< or <emptied< intelligence 77 ro6en out o the polar dynamic o meaning and truth" and so rendered mechanical 77 it is essentially limited. These contentions are not contradictory. .hen I say there is no limit upon computer intelligence" I re er to the programmer-s ability to derive an ever more sophisticated synta0 through her analysis o meanings. Her ne0t program can always appear more aith ul to li e than the last. :ust so ar as we can take hold o a cognitive activity or content and describe it" we will ind that it submits to analysis" yielding an internal" rational structure that can be pursued inde initely toward an ideal o per ect precision. .hen" on the other hand" I say the computer is limited" I re er to F1G its eternal inability to transcend meaning ully the undamental syntactic limits o its own programH and F+G its inability to possess its meanings in the sense that humans do. In other words" you can-t take the nonpolar end products o Fthe programmer-sG analysis" map them to the computational structures o a computer" and e0pect them to climb back into the polar dynamic rom which they were e0tracted 77 any more than you can reduce a conversation to a bare logical structure" and then e0pect anyone to derive rom that structure the concrete substance o the original conversation. These contentions will be disputed by many o those who are busy constructing arti icial intelligences. I will have more to say about their concerns later. 9ut or now I want to emphasi6e the unbounded potential o the computer" which lies in its capacity to receive the imprint o intelligence. And i the computer itsel cannot ascend rom the < ootstep< to the striding oot" it can nevertheless e0ecute the pattern o ootsteps corresponding to a once7striding oot 77 provided only that a programmer has su iciently analy6ed the striding and imparted its pattern to the computer. In other words" even i the computer is cut o rom the polar dynamic" the programmer is not" and so the computer-s evolution toward unbounded intelligence can proceed on the strength o the programmer-s continual e ort to analy6e meanings into rational end products. (very claim that <the computer cannot do so7and7so< is met by the e ort 77 more or less success ul 77 to analy6e so7and7so into a set o pure" ormal structures. It is important to understand 3ust how ar this can proceed. Through proper analysis we can" i we choose" reduce every dimension o human e0perience to a kind o ro6en logic. This is true" as we will see" even or $earnin) and the )rasp of metaphor. That is why the rediscovery o meaning through our own powers o thinking and imagining is so desperately crucial todayB we may ind" be ore long" that we have imprisoned all meaning within an impotent re lection o the real thing" rom which there is no escape. .e can recogni6e these issues at work when philosopher :ohn Haugeland" in a standard introduction to arti icial intelligence" inally resorts to an imagined <e0istence proo < to help solve what he calls the <mystery o original meaning.< Suppose" he says" that a uture comes when intelligent computers are ensconced in mobile and versatile bodiesH and they are capable Fto all appearances anywayG o the ull range o <human< communication" problem solving" artistry" heroism" and what have you. :ust to make it vivid" imagine urther that the human race has long since died out and that the (arth is populated instead by billions o these computer7robots. They build cities" conduct scienti ic research" ight legal battles" write volumes" and" yes" a ew odd ones live in ivory towers and wonder how their <minds< di er rom books 77 or so it seems. 'ne could" I suppose" cling harshly to the view that" in principle" these systems are no di erent rom calculatorsH that" in the absence o people" their tokens" their treatises and songs" mean e0actly nothing. 9ut that 3ust seems perverse. I Jarti icially intelligentK systems can be developed to such an e0tent" then" by all means" they can have original meaning. I+?I 9ut this is not 5uite right. .e can" without apparent limit" <instruct< robots in all these skills" but this" as I have tried to show" does not even tend to imply that the robots possess meaning in the same sense that humans do. It only implies that we can analy6e our meanings and impart their structure to a machine. &or is it <perverse< to point this out. The real 5uestion is whether the uturistic robots would be bound by their synta0 77 e0cluded rom the polar dynamic 77 in a way that humans are not. That is" would they be stuc' where they were" e0cluded rom all progress because unable to take hold o those meanings the emptied traces o which constituted their own logic? .hat really seems to lie behind Haugeland-s argument" however" is the picture o a uture in which we ourselves could not know any signi icant di erence between our machines and ourselves. In that case" it would indeed be oolish to claim privileged status or human thinking. 9ut then" too" there would be a per ectly reasonable conclusion that Haugeland ignores 77 not that the robots had somehow gained what he calls <original meaning"< but that we had lost it.

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Is meaning treated more res ectfully today ? I it is true" as I am arguing" that the main thrust o arti icial intelligence is to destroy the polar dynamic" we should see evidence o this thrust. And the irst place to look is where arti icial intelligence has" in recent years" been em+racin) the important role o meaning F<semantics<G 77 this ollowing an early and disastrous lirtation with supposedly sel 7su icient logic. 9ut is meaning really treated more respect ully today than it used to be? In some ways" yes 77 but not in the ways that count. The early work in arti icial intelligence was i0ated upon logic. Somehow the pioneers in the ield had convinced themselves that ormal logic was the mind-s distilled essence. So as soon as they reali6ed that computers could be programmed to e0hibit comple0 logical structures" euphoria set in. )id this not mean that machines could replicate human minds? Alan Hodges describes how these early researchers regarded physics and chemistry" including all the arguments about 5uantum mechanics ... as essentially irrelevant .... The claim was that whatever a brain did" it did by virtue o its structure as a logical system" and not because it was inside a person-s head" or because it was a spongy tissue made up o a particular kind o biological cell ormation. And i this were so" then its logical structure could 3ust as well be represented in some other medium" embodied by some other physical machinery. I1AI ,iven this outlook" the task was to reduce all knowledge to a ormal" logical structure that could then be impressed upon the computer-s circuits. There was no lack o bracing optimismB :ohn %cCarthy" head o Stan ord !niversity-s Arti icial Intelligence Caboratory" was sure that <the only reason we have not yet succeeded in ormali6ing every aspect o the real world is that we have been lacking a su iciently power ul logical calculus. I am currently working on that problem.< I11I %ore recent years have seen a considerable backlash against the dominance o logic in arti icial intelligence. This backlash is associated with" among other things" the analysis o common sense and background knowledge" the lourishing o connectionism" and the investigation o human reasoning itsel . The aith o the initial generation Jo cognitive scientistsK in a study o logical problems and its determined search or rational thought processes may have been misguided. (mpirical work on reasoning over the past thirty years has severely challenged the notion that human beings 77 even sophisticated ones 77 proceed in a rational manner" let alone that they invoke some logical calculus in their reasoning. I1+I 9ut this statement easily misleads 77 in two ways. 2irst" it is not so much that human beings have been convicted o irrationality as that cognitive scientists were betrayed by assumptions that lew e0traordinarily wide o the mark. Their aith convinced them that cognitive behavior would be ound on its surface to be nothing but the per ectly well7behaved end products o logical analysis 77 as i human beings started rom a position o ideally structured Fand there ore meaninglessG emptiness. As i " that is" the meanings with which we operate were already so thoroughly worn down as to yield a neat calculus o thinking or behavior a ter a single level o analysis. .e may be moving toward such emptiness" but" thank ully" we are not there yet. This mistaken e0pectation was so egregious as to beg or some sort o e0planation. At the very least" we can say that the mis iring was clearly related to the disregard o meaning so characteristic o the cognitive sciences. $esearchers who could posit a mentality built up o nothing but logical orms must have trained themselves over a li etime to ignore as mere lu the meanings" the 5ualities" the presence o their own minds. This bi6arre and simplistic rendering o their own thinking processes its well with what I suggested earlierB it may be we who are approaching the status o robots rather than robots who are approaching human status. %oreover" that the errors o the early researchers have not been remedied by the subse5uent reaction is evident when we consider the second way the statement above can mislead us. )espite all the con essions Fusually made on behal o othersDG about the one7sided approach to computer models o mind" the current work is most de initely not aimed at redressing the imbalance. The researchers have merely been orced to give up all hope o deriving Fand programmingG the necessary logical ormalism based on a irst7 level analysis o human behavior. .e too obviously do not present ourselves on the sur ace as logic machines. In other words" the programmer cannot simply look o hand or those inished" empty structures she would imprint upon the computer-s receptive circuits. She must" it is now recogni6ed" carry out e0tensive <semantic analysis< 77 the analysis o meaning. .hich is to say that she can obtain the desired structures only through laborious toil within the constraints o the polar dynamic o meaning. 'nly by irst entering into meaning can she succeed in breaking it down" and even then she must resort to analysis a ter analysis 77 almost" it appears" without end. And yet" the work always yields some results" and there is no de inable limit upon how ar it can proceed. 9ut the point is that" while the pro)rammer is driven to pursue the polar dynamic" her entire purpose is to derive or the computer those same empty structures that her predecessors would have liked to pluck straight rom the sur ace convolutions o their brains. That is" as a programmer she is orced to work with the polarity" but she does so in order to destroy it. 2or that is the only way she can satis y the computer-s hunger or absolute precision about nothing at all. (very appro0imation" every heuristic" every <synthesis< must be precisely and logically constructed rom the eviscerated end products o analysis.
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&or is any o this surprising" or the computer itsel is above all else a logic machine. ' the many researchers who believe computers will some day think and otherwise mani est humanlike intelligence" ew i any now imagine that the thinking robot o the uture will" in its ruling intelligence" leap the bounds o a ormal system. So" or all the recognition o the <limits o logic and rationality"< the one7sided pursuit o the puri ied end products o analysis remains the untarnished grail 5uest o those who would sculpt a lump o silicon into the shape o a human mind. In this we do not witness the discovery o polarity" but something more like light rom it. Com uters and the inter retation of meta hor As one would e0pect" the e ort to give computers an <understanding< o metaphor is logicocentric. In its own terms it may prove e ective. %oreover" unless we ourselves enter with strengthened imagination into the polar dynamic o meaning" we may easily be convinced that the computer can deal with metaphor much as we do. A great deal hinges on the distinction 9ar ield drew back in the 1?+As" between true and accidental metaphor. The latter is based on an analysis o comple0 ideas" whose parts then can be recombined according to one or another logical scheme. This is 5uite di erent rom the activity o the primary imagination" which is responsible or those more undamental unities rom which comple0 ideas are constructed. *ou will remember that the poetic principle creates the individual terms whose <e0ternal"< logical relationships can then be manipulated by the rational principle. The di erence between true and accidental metaphor is the di erence between the creation or modi ication o terms" and the mere rearrangement o e0isting terms. It is not that accidental metaphors have no value. They can be use ul" 9ar ield notes" <in the e0position o an argument" and in the calling up o clear visual images" as when I ask you to think o the earth as a great orange with a knitting needle struck through it 77 or call the sky an inverted bowl 77 two images in which there can at least be no more than a minimum o poetic truth.< He adds that such metaphors usually carry <a suggestion o having been constructed upon a sort o ramework o logic.< &ow" while it is no doubt true that all metaphors can be reduced to the mathematical ratio a@+@@c@d" they ought not to give the sense o having been constructed on itH and where that is so" we may probably assume that the rea$ relation between the two images is but e0iguous and remote. I11I .hen I call the earth an orange with a knitting needle stuck through it" the ratio Fa 'nittin) need$e is to an oran)e as its a6is of rotation is to the earthG is not likely to be the vehicle o imaginative insight. A0is and knitting needle" earth and orange" hardly constitute revelatory unities" in and o themselves. 9ut we can arran)e a needle and orange in such a way as to represent" abstractly" the re$ation o a0is to earth" and this may be a valuable teaching aid. The metaphor" however" will e ect little modi ication o its constituent termsH we will not come to understand either knitting needles or planetary a0es di erently as a result o it. .hereas the si0teenth7century (uropean could understand <the earth is a planet< only by reconceiving both earth and planet" the planetary acts we convey to a student with orange and needle remain compatible with each o the terms we began with. 2urthermore" to the e0tent such a metaphor does lead to new meaning" it is not the sheer logical structure o the ratio that achieves the result. *ou can play all you want with the relations between terms o a mathematical e5uation" logical proposition" or any other ormal system" but you will not arrive at new meaning unless you call upon something not given ormally in the system itsel . I14I The important distinction between true and accidental metaphor can also be seen as a distinction between two kinds o synthesis. The one operates rationally as the <putting together o ideas.< 9ut it rests upon a second" more basic synthesis. 2or the putting together can only come after" and +y means of" a certain discrimination o actual phenomena 77 a seeing o them as separate sensible ob3ects 77 without which the ideas themselves Fgeneral notionsG could never have e0isted. The poetic principle" on the contrary" was already operative be ore such discrimination took place" and when it continues to operate a terwards in inspiration" it operates in spite of that discrimination and seeks to undo its work. The poetic conducts an immediate conceptua$ synthesis of percepts2 I18I That is" the imagination Foperative in what 9ar ield calls the <poetic principle<G links percept to percept in such a way as to give us those basic discriminations 77 changing with time 77 that determine what sorts o things our world consists o . The secondary kind o synthesis takes these given things and combines them in various ways 77 largely" today" upon a latticework o logic. *ou will recall the discussion o linear perspective in chapter ++" where it was pointed out that" in 9ar ield-s words" <be ore the scienti ic revolution the world was more like a garment men wore about them than a stage on which they moved.< The birth o our own" peculiarly perspectival" three7dimensional e0perience o space was elt to be a seeing with radically new eyes. And 77 5ualitatively" meaning ully" in terms o the 'inds o things men were given rom the world to reason about 77 it was indeed a seeing with new eyes. .hat carried our culture across that divide was an activity o imagination 77 even i it was still largely an unconscious activity. Similarly" the only way to look backward and straddle the divide in thought today is with the aid o metaphor" as when one speaks o
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wearing the world like a garment. (ven so" no ormal analysis o such metaphorical sentences can carry us across what must remain an impassable barrier until we suddenly see throu)h everything given ormally in the metaphor" grasping it instead as a revealing alsehood. F'ne prere5uisite or this seeing may be many years spent studying medieval cultureDG %eaning" as I noted earlier" can be suggested but not conveyed. It cannot be conveyed because there is no automatic or mechanical process" no ormalism" that can hold it. It is interesting to consider a hypothetical" medievally programmed robot living through the $enaissance and beyond. The claim in the oregoing is that this robot-s programming could never have prepared it to cope with the transition rom a garment7world to a stage7 world. As the surrounding culture began to assimilate and logically elaborate the new meanings o a stage7world" the robot born in a garment7world would ind the new terms o discussion oddly skewed in a way it could never <straighten out.< I1;I This argument" o course" will carry conviction only or the reader who can success ully imagine the di erences between these two sorts o world. Such an imagination must reach beyond everything given abstractly" everything ormally capturable. A ter all" the laws governing the propagation o light Fand the ormation o images on the robot-s visual input deviceG presumably did not change during the $enaissance. The di erences were 5ualitativeB they involved" as I point out in chapter ++" such transitions as the one between inding onesel <in the story< o a painting or landscape" and ga6ing upon the landscape as an observer who has been cast out rom it. 'r" likewise" the transition some non7.esterners must still make today i they are to overcome the strange and unrealistic 5uality o photographs. Com uter learning The e ort to make machines that learn is governed by these same issues" or the essence o learning Fas opposed to shoveling < acts<G lies in the e0pansion o meaning. 9oth imagination and metaphor" along with the more commonly accepted tools o analysis" must be present in any learning that is not simply a con irmation o e0isting pre3udices. %achines certainly can learn" in the e0traordinarily restricted sense that their current states can be logically elaborated and the implications o those states drawn out. 9ut this is not at all the same as logically elaborating a set o structures derived rom genuinely new meanings 77 and even less is it the same as apprehendin) such meanings in the irst place. The point with learning" as with metaphor" is that the computer" as a purely syntactic machine" cannot reali6e any uture not already implied in its <past< 77 that is" in its programming 77 however sophisticated it may be at producing ever more ingenious logical variations on that past. It can" as we saw 9acon put the matter" <prove or dispute< endlessly regarding its received terms" and can be programmed to recombine those terms in every possible permutation. 9ut it will never undertake the di icult task o reconceiving things through an imaginative use o metaphor that makes a <lie< o its previous meanings. *evels of descri tion There is one ob3ection my discussion will have provoked rom certain 5uarters almost every step o the way. <*ou have mi0ed together di erent levels o description. Computers may be rule7bound on one level" but at a higher level they need not be.< This is a large topic and" I am convinced" the source o many con usions. The standard line tends to run this wayB It is true that at one level the computer deals solely in" say" ones and 6eros. 9ut at other levels we see di erent behaviors <emerging"< and we can best describe some o these behaviors in nonmathematical language. 2or e0ample" we can describe a car as a collection o atoms" subatomic particles" ields" and so on. I1=I F'ur description will be largely mathematical.G .e can also resort to camsha t" valves" pistons" gears" and the like. 'r" again" we can talk about how nicely the car drives us to the supermarket. The language o one level doesn-t get us very ar when we-re talking on a di erent level. So" or e0ample" there are those who happily speak o the computer-s mathematical determination at some level" while at the same time hailing its artistic prowess" its intelligence" and even its potential or reedom. <A ter all"< they will say" <human beings are ully determined at the molecular level" but it still makes sense to assert an e0perience o reedom at the level o our daily activity.< The theorist-s redescription o his sub3ect matter in moving rom one level to another provides a tempting opportunity to reintroduce on the sly and without 3usti ication what has previously been purged rom the theory. This occurs in the conte0t o many philosophical discussions" including those dealing with the <emergence< o human reedom" purpose" and intentionality. FIntentionality is sometimes described as the <aboutness< o cognitive activity. Human speech" or e0ample" is normally a+out something in a way that" say" the gravitational interaction between planets is not.G The place where this illicit smuggling o meaning is perhaps most obvious is in the very irst level o redescription" where the leap is rom theoretical descriptions approaching pure ormalism to descriptions that involve <something else.< Surely such redescription is impossible where we have no description to begin with 77 no meanings" nothing to redescribe 77 that is" where we are dealing with a completed ormalism. I " or e0ample" physics has reached a point where we cannot associate meaning ul terms with our e5uations" what is it we are redescribing when we try to relate the theory to" say" chocolate cake? The act that we can seem to per orm this redescription is clearly related to those theoretically illicit 5ualities we let slip back into our irst7level descriptions without acknowledging them.

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The 5uestion" in other words" is how one gets <things< at all" starting rom the ideal o a ormal description. The di iculty in this helps to e0plain why researchers in other disciplines are content to leave the metaphysical 5uandaries o physics to the physicist. <'bviously enough"< the e5uations must be a+out something" so one can now redescribe that something by drawing upon all its supposed phenomenal 5ualities" however theoretically illegitimate those 5ualities may be. It has o ten been noted how easily subatomic <particles< become" in our imaginations" com ortingly solid little billiard balls. In moving between higher levels o description" tracking the sleight o hand can be e0tremely challenging" because the theorist is allowing himsel to play with meanings to which 77 precisely because he has no theoretical basis or dealing with them 77 he is inattentive. He easily manages to slip rom one <reality< to another" without being ully aware o how certain subtle shi ts o meaning in his words per orm an essential part o the work. #robably the most widespread" entrenched" and respected gambit o this sort is the one e0ecuted with the aid o information. 2rom genetic encoding to computer intelligence" the idea o in ormation plays a key theoretical role. )e ined as the measure o a message-s <statistical une0pectedness"< in ormation conduces to wonder ully 5uantitative e0plication" precisely because it simply takes or granted both the messa)e itsel " as meaning ul content" and the spea'er o the message. And" in strict in ormation theory" the message and speaker are indeed irrelevantH they-re not what the theory is about. At the higher levels" however" many theorists are all too ready to assume" not that meaning has been i)nored at the lower level Fwhich is trueG" but that it has been satis actorily reduced and e6p$ained Fwhich is alseG. These are very di erent matters. .hat makes all this plausible is our ability to program deterministic" mathematically describable machines that do succeed in <processing in ormation< 77 where <in ormation< is now understood as having meaning ul content. I one is willing to ignore the signi icance o the premier act o speaking by the programmer" and i one manages to lose sight o the necessary polar dynamic o meaning rom which that act proceeds" then one can sustain the illusion that in ormation and meaning really do arise o their own accord rom an edi ice o abstractions. To.ar# the f t re The preceding is ar less a set o answers to the pressing 5uestions o cognitive science than it is a sketchy proposal or a research agenda. &or does it touch upon more than a ew selected issues. I have not discussed" or e0ample" the act that the computer-s role cannot be understood solely in terms o its character as a syntactic or logic engine 77 even i that character wholly de ines and limits what we might call its <native intelligence.< %uch o the computer-s practical e ectiveness comes rom the way the programmer cunningly marries what I have elsewhere called <book value< I1>I to the otherwise empty logical structures o a program. In this way" words that have detached themselves rom the human speaker gain a kind o li e o their own" 3erkily animated" so to speak" by the logical mechanism upon which they are hung. The e0pectation that the 3erkiness can progressively be smoothed out lies behind much o the hope or humanlike intelligence in machines. That this causally grounded interaction between logical mechanism and words is something 5uite di erent rom the polar dynamic o accuracy and meaning will" I think" be appreciated by anyone who has truly entered into an understanding o the dynamic. 9ut that is a topic I have not addressed here. Searching for the self I we take human reedom seriously" then we cannot hope to capture in any inal terms the nature o man. As is sometimes said" each individual is a <species< o his own. .e work" or can work" upon our own natures. 9ut i this is our highest task" it is also the one most di icult to undertake in ourselves or to recogni6e in others. It is not easy to identi y what comes merely rom the e0pression o habit" the play o deeply ingrained associations" the mechanical response to controlling cues in the environment Fin other words" rom a past determining the utureG 77 3ust as it is not easy to identi y what is a true taking hold o ourselves in reedom" allowing a new uture to ray into the present. It may be ar more challenging to recogni6e the sovereign" ree sel than many o us imagine. Take away that sel " and we would continue to cruise through li e in most o the e0pected ways. .hich is to say that the sel is not very prominent. It has yet to waken ully to its own powers o reedom. Such" I believe" is the state in which mankind now inds itsel . And yet" it is only in pro ound wake ulness that we can begin to understand what distinguishes us rom machines. %eanwhile" we are creating intelligent devices possessed o ever increasing cleverness. .e can carry this process as ar as we wish. It is a process without limits" and yet with radical limits. 'n the one hand" there is no meaning we cannot implant within the computer" so long as we are willing to identi y the meaning with a set o precisely elaborated logical structures. 'n the other hand" however comple0 and intricate the elaboration 77 however many layers we construct 77 the computer as a computational device remains outside the living polarity o truth and meaning. .ithin the breathing space between these two acts there is doubtless much we can achieve with computers i " recogni6ing their peculiar nature" we make them the servants o our meanings. 9ut I hope this chapter will have made the risks a little more visible. Hypnotic ascination with the abstract orms o intelligence" and a hasty rush to embody these orms in electromechanical devices" can easily lead to renunciation For simple orget ulnessG o the inner 3ourney toward the living sources o our thinking. *et it is human nature to leave every past accomplishment" every worn meaning"
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behind. A past that rules the present with a silicon ist is a past that congeals" crystalli6es" ractures" prematurely reducing to straw the tender shoots o a uture not yet reali6ed. To live in reedom is to grow continually beyond ourselves. The uture robots o our ancy could only rule a desolate landscape" or they would be intelligences without live meaning" creatures o vacant orm" lacking all substance" condemned to echo utilely and orever the possibilities inherent in the last thoughts o their creators 77 a prospect no less gray when those last thoughts happen to e0press the most sublime truths o the day. These machines would be the ghosts o men" not even desperate in their ingenious hollowness. -eferences 1. 9ar ield" 1?;=B 1871?. I have also discussed the idea o polarity in chapter ++" <Seeing in #erspective.< +. $egarding the <disappearance< o phenomena into theoretical entities" see (delglass et al." 1??+. 1. Actually" it is virtually impossible to take mathematics in the strictest sense" because we are by nature creatures o meaning. .e cannot wholly purge mathematics o those meaning ul associations o orm and substance rom which it has been abstracted Fand to which it ever seeks a returnG. %oreover" nothing here is meant to deny the very deep and worthwhile satis actions to be had rom pursuit o the purest mathematical disciplines. 4. In modern theory" mathematics and logic are not treated as undamentally distinct disciplines. 8. $ussell" 1?>1B 8?7;A. ;. von 9aeyer" 1??+B 1=>. =. Euehlewind" 1?>4B 1+?. >. See appendi0 4 in 9ar ield" 1?=1. ?. 9ar ield" 1?>1. 1A. See" or e0ample" 9ar ield-s evocation o the medieval consciousness" 5uoted in chapter ++. 11. 9utter ield" 1?8=B 111. 1+. 9ar ield" 1?>1B 1+714. 11. 9ar ield" 1?>1B 18. 14. 9ar ield" 1?=1B 114. 18. 9ar ield" 1?>1B 1=. 1;. 9ar ield" 1?=1B +8. 1=. 9ar ield uses <poet< and <poetic< to e0press broadly the operation o the imagination" as opposed to that o rational analysis. The terms are by no means so restrictive as in normal usage today. Thus" a creative scientist may be as likely to e0ercise the poetic unction 77 i not more so 77 as a writer o verse. 1>. 9ar ield" 1?=1B 111. 1?. 9ar ield" 1?=1B 111. +A. 9ar ield" 1?=1B 111. +1. 2rancis 9acon" The Advancement of =earnin)! +.1=.1A. Puoted in 9ar ield" 1?=1B 14174+. ++. 9ar ield" 1?=1B appendi0 +. +1. 9ar ield" 1?;8bB 1+=. He is speaking here through the ictionali6ed voice o a physicist" Eenneth 2lume. +4. 9ar ield" 1?==aB 1AA.
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+8. 9ar ield" 1?=1B =?. +;. 9ar ield" 1?=1B 1>=7>>. +=. 9ar ield" 1?=1B =8. +>. 9ar ield" 1?=1B ?17?+. +?. Haugeland" 1?>8B 1++. 1A. Puoted in :ohnson7Caird" 1?>>B 11. 11. Puoted in .ei6enbaum" 1?=;B +A1. 1+. ,ardner" 1?>8B 1;1. 11. 9ar ieldB 1?=1B 1?=7?>. 14. The Copycat program developed by )ouglas Ho stadter et al. e0empli ies current e orts to understand metaphor computationally. Ho stadter speaks with disarming ease o <an une0pected and deep slippage"< <the revelation o contradiction"< <intense pressures"< and those <radical shi ts in point o view< that bring one <close to the roots o human creativity.< And yet" all the devices o Copycat amount to a kind o logical 3uggling rom which no new simp$e terms Fas opposed to new combinations o e0isting termsG can ever arise. That is" the program can do no more than play with the logical structure o comple0 entitiesH it cannot alter any o the root meanin)s rom which all comple0 terms are constructed. Ho stadter" incidentally" shows no sign that he is aware o 9ar ield-s work on metaphor and meaning. FSee Ho stadter" %itchell" and 2rench" 1?>=H %itchell and Ho stadter" 1??AaH %itchell and Ho stadter" 1??Ab.G 18. 9ar ield" 1?=1B 1?1. 1;. It might make more sense to imagine a modern robot transported back to medieval times. 9ut the same point can be made" either way. 1=. Actually" it-s worth pointing out that" despite the standard story" one obviously cannot do this. Supposedly" it-s possible in princip$e" but even the principle" it turns out" is riddled with vices. 1>. See chapter 1>" <And the .ord 9ecame %echanical.< Electronic $ysticism Cyberspace. $oom or the human spirit to soar ree. (arth surrounded by a digiti6ed halo o in ormation 77 a throbbing" ethereal matri0 coagulating into ever shi ting patterns o revelation" and giving birth to a rich stream o social" political" and environmental initiatives. The individual reedom once sought only within the cloister or in the trenches is now to low rom keyboard" mouse and glove" electri ying the initiated with raw and unbounded potential or new +ein). An electronic &ew :erusalem" its streets paved with silicon and bridging all cultural ri ts" promises the healing o nations. (ven the hope o personal immortality lickers it ully or the irst time through materialist brains contemplating prospects or )&A downloading and brain decoding. And you" sel 7pro essed in onaut 77 rom whose 3argon I have ashioned this vision 77 you say you-re not religious? 1thena)s pro@ect I we really must have our mysticism" then it seems a worthwhile e0ercise to take a brie look backward. 2or our myth7making ancestors truly did live mystically tinged lives. A comparison with our own day might there ore prove interesting. I will not" however" <make a case< about early man. I will attempt only to suggest what at least some scholarly traditions have to say about the human past. *ou may take it or whatever it-s worth. The problem" o course" is that it-s nearly impossible or us to twist our minds around the psyche o those who le t us the great myths. I you doubt this" try making sense o a ew lines rom the (gyptian #yramid Te0ts. 'r simply re lect or awhile upon 'wen 9ar ield-s remark that <it is not man who made the myths" but the myths that made man.< 9ar ield" a philologist and pro ound student o historical semantics" means this 5uite literally. And yet" no one can blame us or inding such a statement disorienting. 2or my part" I will approach the matter more gently by observing Fwith 9ar ieldG that ancient man" much more than we" e0perienced himsel rather like an embryo within a surrounding" nourishing cosmos. And his cosmos was not at all a world o detached" inert" dis7
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ensouled <things< such as we ace" but instead more like a plenum o wisdom and potency. 'ut o this plenum 77 all the great mythic traditions assure us o this 77 the primal" mythic <words< o the gods congealed into the deeply ensouled orms o creation. %an" a microcosm within the macrocosm" encountered both his Source and re lection in the world" much as an embryo draws its sustenance rom" and discovers its image o wholeness in" the mother. The minds o our remote ancestors" as 9ar ield orce ully demonstrates" were not launching pads or <primitive theories< about the world. It would be truer to say" as we will see" that the mythic surround was engaged in weaving the ancient mind" as in a dream. 9ut" eventually" man the dreamer o myths woke up to be the maker o myths 77 or" rather" the recollector o myths" 3ust as we today recall the pictures o our dreams and then struggle with awkward" make7believe words F<it was as i ...<G to reconstitute what had been a per ect unity o e0perience. This historical waking up occurred most suddenly and dramatically in ,reece. $ecall or a moment that scene at the beginning o the %$iad where Achilles is prepared to draw his sword against Agamemnon" bringing disastrous stri e into the ,reek camp. The goddess Athena takes her stand beside him" catches him by his golden hair" making hersel to be seen o him alone" and o the rest no man beheld her. And Achilles was sei6ed with wonder" and turned him about" and orthwith knew #allas AthenaH and terribly did her eyes lash. Athena then counsels Achilles to stay his hand" and he obeys" or <a man must observe the words< o a goddess. &ow it happens 77 and this was pointed out by the outstanding classicist" 9runo Snell 77 that this same pattern holds at many points throughout the %$iadB when a decisive moment is reached and a man must act ate ully" a god intervenes. ' ten the intervention does not urther the story in the slightest" but only gets in the way. 'r" at least" it gets in our way. .e would rather Achilles 3ust decided to restrain himsel 77 something he should do rom out o his own character. Snell-s point" however" is that or the Homeric heroes there was not yet enough character 77 no one su iciently there 77 to do the deciding. Athena <enters the stage at a moment when the issue is" not merely a mystery" but a real secret" a miracle.< 2or Achilles <has not yet awakened to the the act that he possesses in his own soul the source o his powers<B Homer lacks a knowledge o the spontaneity o the human mindH he does not reali6e that decisions o the will" or any impulses or emotions" have their origin in man himsel .... .hat was later known as the <li e o the soul< was at irst understood as the intervention o a god. I1I Similarly" 2rancis Corn ord" noting the common de inition o animism as the conviction that everything in the world possesses a soul like one-s own" commented that such animism could only be o relatively recent dateB At irst" the individual has no soul o his own which he can proceed to attribute to other ob3ects in nature. 9e ore he can ind his own soul" he must irst become aware o a power which both is and is not himsel 77 a moral orce which at once is superior to his own and yet is participated in by him. I+I 2ollowing his discussion o Homer" Snell goes on to trace the actual ,reek <awakening< in the lyric poets and tragedians. The discovery o the mind" he argues" occurred by means o the progressive internali6ation o the order" the laws" the grace" irst e0perienced in the all7enveloping world o the 'lympian gods" with whom the ,reeks were so ascinated. And he notes that this <discovery< is not 5uite the same thing as chancing upon a lost ob3ect. To discover the mind is" in a very real sense" to gain a mind that did not e0ist be ore. #art o Achilles- mental unctioning was not his own" but the gi t o Athena. He was not capable o orming theories about her or <using< her to e0plain eventsH the <presence o mind< by which the theory7 ormer would eventually be born was only now being brought down to earth. The result o the descent was the lowering o art and intellect in classical ,reece 77 and beyond that" all o .estern civili6ation. 2or you can read" i you like" not only in Snell but in works like 2rancis Corn ord-s From Re$i)ion to Phi$osophy and $. 9. 'nians- The Ori)ins of -uropean Thou)ht" how the world o the gods upon which the earliest ,reeks ga6ed and by which they were so pro oundly a ected was the historical prere5uisite or all those later achievements o the human mind with which we are amiliar. As Corn ord notes" even i we look at the e0treme materialism re lected in )emocritean atomism" it remains true that <the properties o immutability and impenetrability ascribed to atoms are the last degenerate orms o divine attributes.< &or have we even today wholly succeeded in elucidating a certain chthonic darkness hidden within the most undamental terms o our physics 77 time" space" energy" mass" matter. The !a. in .hich .e)re &a#e All o recorded history can be viewed as a progressive waking" a coming to ourselves. I1I 9ar ield" who traces many aspects o this process" points out" or e0ample" that the human e0perience o <inspiration< 77 literally" being breathed into by a god 77 has passed rom something like possession or divine madness" to something much more like <possessing a tutelary spirit" or genius"< until today it means scarcely more than <reali6ing one-s ullest capabilities.< I4I .hat irst seemed an inbreathing rom without now seems increasingly our own activity.

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In all o this we see a certain coherent movement. The embryo gains an ever more independent li e and inally 77 cut o rom a once7 sustaining world 77 contemplates and regenerates within the isolation o its own skull the creative speech rom which it was itsel bred. The word has moved rom the mythic surround into a bright" sub3ective ocus in the newly sel 7conscious individual" who now prepares to speak it orth again as his own creation. 9ut not mere$y his own creation. 2or this word 77 i it remains true 77 still resonates with the ancient intonations o the gods. As :. $. $. Tolkien has written o the human storytellerB Though all the crannies o the world we illed with (lves and ,oblins" though we dared to build ,ods and their houses out o dark and light" and sowed the seed o dragons 77 -twas our right Fused or misusedG. That right has not decayedB we make still by the law in which we-re made. I8I *e ma'e sti$$ +y the $aw in which we4re made. 9ut wait. .hat is this we see today? Scholars and engineers hover like winged angels over a high7tech cradle" singing the algorithms and structures o their minds into silicon receptacles" and eagerly nurturing the irst glimmers o intelligence in the machine7child. The surrounding plenum o wisdom 77 an incubating laboratory crammed ull o monitors" circuit boards" disks" cables" and programs 77 supports the ragile embryonic development at every turn. *hen" the attendant demigods ask" wi$$ this inte$$i)ent offsprin) of ours come to 'now itse$f as a chi$d of the human cosmos 77 and when" beyond that" will it inally waken to a ully independent consciousness? .ill the silicon embryo" its umbilical cord to the research laboratory severed" eventually attain the maturity to create reely <by the law in which it-s made<? And will it learn" in the end" to rebel against even this law? Some will consider these 5uestions blasphemous. I pre er to see them simply as natural 77 the 5uestions we must ask" because our destiny orces them upon us. And yet" our unmistakable echoing o the myth7enshrouded past suggests that we are indeed dwelling within sacred precincts wherein blasphemy is possible. #erhaps only today" when the creation is inally given power to devise once7 unthinkable rebellion against the law o its own making" can the truest and deepest blasphemy be spoken. 5ro& &eaning to synta, I began by citing a kind o latter7day" electronic mysticism" and suggested we look or comparison toward the mythic past. This led to a consideration o the mind-s <discovery< by the ,reeks at the hands o their gods. %ore broadly" it appeared that rom the most distant 77 yet still discernible 77 past to the present a kind o reversal" or inversion" has occurredB where man-s consciousness was once the stage on which the gods played" he has now <grown up< so as to stand irmly within himsel and to pro3ect his own thoughts out into the universe. .e saw one re lection o this reversal in the changing meaning o <inspiration.< ' the many other re lections o the same historical process" one is particularly worth noting now. Canguages" 9ar ield points out" give every appearance o having emerged rom something like a sea o pure meaning" and only slowly have they hardened into the relatively i0ed and e0plicit syntactic structures we know today. 2or the ancients" every sur ace disclosed a spirit7 illed interior" while every gesture o spirit was embodied. Spirit and lesh" thought and thing" were not the opposites we have since made them. A dense web o connections 77 inner and outer at the same time 77 bound the human being to the world. The spoken word 77 a token o power 77 constellated or both speaker and hearer a concrete universe o meaning. Tolkien suggests something o this ancient power o the word in The (i$mari$$ion" where he describes the creation o the earth. Iluvatar and the Ainur broke orth in song" and a sound arose o endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights" and the places o the dwelling o Iluvatar were illed to over lowing" and the music and the echo o the music went out into the @oid" and it was not void. I;I I it helps to give substance to the metaphor" you might try to imagine the in initely comple0 patterns o interweaving sound waves 77 say" in a concert hall 77 and the higher7order patterns that continually emerge rom this comple0ity and then dissolve again" only to assume new shapes. Imagine urther that we could steadily thicken the medium o this aural dance" until inally the harmonies condensed into grace ul" visible orms. 'r" i you pre er" think o the patterns o interacting light that coalesce into ull7bodied holograms. It is a long way rom Tolkien-s mythological constructions 77 wherein he recaptures something o the word-s ormer signi icance 77 to the computer languages o our day. .e call these computer languages < ormal"< since they are possessed o synta0 F ormG alone. Their <dictionaries< do not elucidate meanings" but rather speci y purely computational 77 arithmetical or logical 77 se5uences. Somehow" it is up to us to invest the se5uences with meaning. Starting with threadbare 1-s and A-s" we must build layer a ter labyrinthine layer o logic" hoping that somewhere along the line we will have succeeded in imposing our own meaning upon the synta0 Fbut where will it come rom?G. This hope has been enshrined as a rather orlorn principleB TH( 2'$%ACIST-S %'TT'B I the programmer takes care o the synta0" the program-s meaning will JsomehowK take care o itsel . I=I And what is this meaning? &o longer the enveloping" sustaining" ormative power o the word" but Fi we are luckyG" a mutely pointing inger. #hilosophers wrestling with the problem o <intentionality< struggle to ind a legitimate way by which the
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mechanically manipulated word may at least refer to 77 point at 77 a dead ob3ect. There is little agreement on how even this inal abstraction o the ancient e0perience o meaning might be possible. I>I So in the historical movement rom meaning7rich to synta07 bound languages" computers represent an e0treme endpoint. %uch else is related to this overall historical shi t 77 not least the change rom a humanly e0perienced unity with the world to a state o alienation wherein we stand as isolated sub3ects be ore ob3ects that seem wholly disconnected rom us. 'ne milestone in this development occurred only a ew centuries ago" when the words <sub3ect< and <ob3ect< completed a rather dramatic reversal o meaning. The sub3ect went rom <what e0ists absolutely in its own right< F,od was the one true Sub3ectG to today-s notion captured in the phrase" <merely sub3ective.< Similarly" the ob3ect 77 once purely derivative" a spin7o rom the sub3ect 77 now en3oys an unaccustomed prestige and sel 7su iciency as the solid" reassuring substance o <ob3ective reality.< I?I "hat &anner of go#s .i!! .e 2eA The engineering hosts hovering over their silicon child have not escaped these historical reversals. Having lost sight o their own substantiality as sub3ects 77 wherein they might have chosen" with Tolkien" to <make by the law in which they were made< 77 they contrive instead to ashion a child7mind wholly emergent rom its physical substrate. Their own role as begetters" while not entirely orgotten" is less a matter o spirit7 ecundity than o purely e0ternal manipulation o the mind-s <ob3ective" physical basis< 77 which basis in turn is supposed to account or all the results. 2rom Tolkien-s storyteller 77 whose tale originates and remains one with his own mind 77 they have descended to mechanical tinkerer. To reduce creation-s language to synta0 is to be le t 77 as they proudly boast 77 with mechanism alone. ,iven the historical passage" Tolkien-s passionate a irmation o the creative sub3ect was already 5uaint when he voiced it. 9ut now we have received rom %yron Erueger" one o the athers o <virtual reality"< a suitably modern declarationB <what we have made" makes us.< I1AI *hat we have made! ma'es us2 )o you see the inversion? 2urthermore" it is substantially true. :ust so ar as we ignore the law o our own making 77 3ust so ar as we orget our ancient descent rom a cosmos o wisdom above us 77 we lose the basis o creative mastery" and o er ourselves to be remade by the mechanisms below us. .hether consciously or not" we choose between the above and the below. .e take possession o a creativity rooted in the wisdom by which we were made" or else we sub3ect ourselves to lesser powers ruling more per ectly in our machines than they ever could in ourselves" our only <hope< then being to live as it servants o our own creations. It is not hard to see that we are pursuing an e0periment every bit as momentous as the discovery o the mind at the dawning o .estern civili6ation. I we would <sing< our own intelligence into machines" hoping they may eventually discover their own minds" then 77 whatever you may think o the historical perspectives I have outlined 77 you will grant that we aspire to a role like the one I described or the gods. And it is there ore reasonable to askB what manner o gods will we be? .e do not seem very interested in this 5uestion. .e spend much time debating what manner o intelligence our machines are mani esting" and toward what uture goal they are evolving. 9ut we are less inclined to ask toward what goal we are evolving. #erhaps we and our machines are converging upon the same goal 77 converging" that is" upon each other. Certainly i our computers are becoming ever more humanlike" then it goes without saying that we are becoming ever more computerlike. .ho" we are well advised to ask" is doing the most changing? .hat i the decisive issue we ace in arti icial intelligence today is the ever accelerating adaptation o our minds and ourselves to electromechanical intelligence? .hat i our current e orts" wrongly or uncritically pursued" threaten to abort the human spirit on its path rom the cradle o the gods to its own intended maturity? The ancient narratives speak o the gods- sacri ice as they labored over the human race. 9ut a sacri ice can be noble" or it can be ignoble 77 it can be the discovery o our highest calling" or a waste ul throwing away o what is valuable. .e should ask what sort o sacri ice we are making as we labor to breathe our own intelligence into a race o silicon. There is no gainsaying that computers already embody much o what human intelligence has become" much o what we e6perience our intelligence to be. .e may 77 legitimately" I think 77 eel a pride in our creations. 9ut" looking over the past ive hundred years or so" perhaps we should also eel a ew whispered apprehensions about the systematic reduction o our own thinking to a kind o computation. 2or it now appears that we ace a choiceB either to reduce ourselves" inally" to machines" or to rediscover 77 and live up to 77 our own birthright" our heritage rom ages long past. 6gnoring the past 9ut perhaps now your patience is e0hausted. <.hy do you insist on e0ercising this strange predilection or placing the computer within an ancient historical conte0t? To be sure" there are some interesting curiosities here" but don-t e0pect anyone to take it all with grave seriousnessD (ventually one has to turn away rom speculations about the past and get back to the work at hand" with eyes wide open.<
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I do understand such a reaction. 9ut the suggestion that history 77 including the origin and development o the human mind 77 is largely irrelevant to our current undertakings is a curious one. How is it that we have attended to origins and evolution so pro itably in ields ranging rom biology to astronomy 77 and" indeed" have ound this attention critical to our understanding 77 but are now hell7 bent on creating arti icial intelligence without so much as a backward look? .here would geology be without Cyell" or biology without )arwin? .here would astronomy be without cosmology? And yet the cognitive scientist blindly and happily strives to <implement< the human mind in computers without a thought about the past. I11I This narrowness o outlook reads 5uite well as a symptom o adaptation to our machines. .e are trained to analy6e every matter 77 including our own powers o analysis 77 into the sort o nonproblematic terms that will success ully compute. 'therwise" we 77 who are" a ter all" supposed to do something as we sit in ront o our computers 77 have no 3ob. It does not surprise me that we can instill much o our intelligence into machines" or it is an intelligence already machine7trained" an intelligence shaped to the mechanisms with which we have compulsively been surrounding ourselves or these past several centuries. It seems to me that we-re looking at this same narrowness o outlook when we consider how badly the early pioneers o arti icial intelligence erred with their e0cited predictions" the most amous probably being Herbert Simon-s 1?;8 statement that <machines will be capable" within +A years" o doing any work that a man can do.< I1+I Still earlier" in 1?8>" Simon had writtenB It is not my aim to surprise or shock you .... 9ut the simplest way I can summari6e the situation is to say that there are now in the world machines that think" that learn and that create. %oreover" their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until 77 in the visible uture 77 the range o problems they can handle will be coe0tensive with the range to which the human mind has been applied. I11I Certainly all but a ew incorrigible enthusiasts have pulled back rom such statements in more recent years. And the unpleasant 3olts administered by ailed pro3ects have delivered a younger generation o researchers rom having 5uite the same naivete. 9ut not many have come to understand 77 or even to pose the 5uestion 77 how it was that competent researchers were sub3ect to such a misconstrual o the task in the irst place. The early and misguided enthusiasm or <logic machines< arose" I think" rom an e0traordinarily simplistic reading o their own minds by a group o researchers who possessed" without a doubt" brilliant intellects. They looked within" and they were aware o little more than the operations o a sophisticated calculator. This should give us pause. .hat crippling o human consciousness 77 evident in even the best minds o the modern era 77 could have yielded such a grotes5uely lawed and inade5uate sel 7awareness? It is not clear that we today are any less possessed by the same underlying assumptions" the same 5ualities o mind" that led to the earlier errors. &or can we ever be con ident in this regard" without irst enlarging our sympathies to embrace other minds" other eras" other possibilities. 3scaping c !t ra! !i&itation Human consciousness has evolved 77 and in some rather undamental ways. Certainly we-re le t with some room or reading di erent meanings into the word <evolved"< but it remains true that the world o Achilles and the 'lympian gods is a long way rom our own. 'ur consciousness today is" or all practical purposes" incapable o assuming shapes that once were easy or natural. 9ut i this is so" surely we should be concerned. .hat i all that we glori y today as <in ormation< is but an ashen residue o the luminous meaning that once held both man and world in its embrace? In other words" it is not outrageous to contend that what we have today is in some respects a seriously disabled consciousness" and that our in atuation with machines is both a symptom o our disability and a urther contributor to it. :ust as we cannot imagine the mythic word to which the ancients were attuned" so increasingly we cannot imagine our own thoughts as anything very di erent rom the electromechanical operations o a computer. 9ut entrapment within a particular culture is a dangerous state or any truth7seeker. How can we be sure" without some historical investigation" that our cultural limitations are not destructive o the truth? It is precisely such investigation that I would like to encourage. .hatever it is that most essentially distinguishes us rom computers" I am convinced that it is intimately related to the powers with which we may success ully pursue e0ercises in historical imagination. Having no doubt made rough weather o it here" I should perhaps consider mysel ripe or cloning as a computerD 9ut the alternative to such cloning will" I trust" still appeal to at least some o you 77 the alternative" that is" o reaching beyond yourselves and understanding sympathetically e0actly those things that have no support in your current habits o thought or system o meanings. The result may be ully as startling as to ind yoursel yanked by the hair and brought ace to ace with lashing7eyed Athena. ' one thing I am sureB i we do not have this sort o e0perience" we will" in the end" merely compute. -eferences 1. Snell" 1?;AB +1" 1171+. +. Corn ord" 1?8=.
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1. See chapter +A" <Awaking rom the #rimordial )ream.< 4. 9ar ield" 1?;=B chapter 1. 8. Tolkien" 1?4=. ;. Tolkien" 1?==B 18. =. Adapted rom Haugeland" 1?>8. >. <This is the undamental problem in the philosophy o mind o menta$ content or intentiona$ity" and its proposed solutions are notoriously controversial< F)ennett" 1??1B 1?+ n. =G. ?. 9ar ield" 1?;=B chapter 4. 1A. Erueger" orward to Heim" 1??1. 11. )aniel C. )ennett" re erred to in a previous ootnote" is more historically oriented than most who work with computer models o mind. *et he o ers only the standard evolutionary story o the brain and its <so tware"< and chooses not to e0plore the evolution o what he calls the <heterophenomenological te0t< F)ennett" 1??1G. 2or that evolution and some o its implications 77 wholly missed in contemporary cognitive science 77 see 9ar ield" 1?=1 and 9ar ield" 1?;8a. 1+. Simon" 1?;8B ?;. 11. Simon" 1?8>B >. What #his )ook Was About Technology o ers us many obscure reasons or worry" not least among them the threat o nuclear terrorism. *et what I ear most in the technological cornucopia is the computer-s gentle reason. A bomb-s ury e0hausts itsel in a moment" and the poisonous a termath can at least be identi ied and tracked. The computer" burrowing painlessly into every social institution" in ecting every human gesture" leaves us dangerously unalarmed. The irst post7 Hiroshima nuclear detonation in a ma3or city 77 however deep the gash it rips through human lives and world structures 77 may clari y the minds o world leaders marvelously" 3olting them" we can hope" to wise and sensible action. The computer" meanwhile" will continue 5uietly altering what it means to be wise or sensible. &ew technologies o ten e0ert their early in luences reassuringly" by merely imitating older" more com ortable tools. .e still use the computer primarily or electronic mail" routine word processing" and te0t storage. Its distinctive powers remain nascent" rumored endlessly back and orth among silently blinking C()s" whose precise meditations upon the uture betray little to casual observation. .e must try" nevertheless" to spy on that uture. "here are &achines !ea#ingA It is" a ter all" one thing to introduce the computer into the classroom as a ascinating curiosity" but 5uite another when the curiosity +ecomes the classroom 77 and teacher and curriculum as well. It is one thing to transmit te0t across a computer network" but 5uite another when machines are employed to read the te0t and interpret it" or to translate it into di erent languages 77 or to compose the te0t in the irst place. A computer very likely supplies your doctor with a database o diagnostic in ormation and a means or recordkeeping. 9ut it can act directly as diagnostician" prescriber" and even surgeon. %ost o us currently interact with our computers via keyboard and mouse. 9ut we cou$d interact by attaching electrodes to our heads and learning to manipulate our own brain waves. I1I .hat I ear in all this is not the wild" e0aggerated claim about tomorrow-s technology 77 the android nonsense" or e0ample 77 but rather the myriad" daily" unsurveyable" incomprehensible" mutually rein orcing" minor advances on a thousand di erent ronts. And it is not so much the advances themselves that disturb me as their apparent inevitability and global logic. .e seem to have no choice about our uture" and yet that uture appears to be taking shape according to a coherent <plan.<

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An inability to master technology :ac5ues (llul says much the same thing when he points to the <,reat Innovation< that has occurred over the past decade or two. The con lict between technology and the broader values o society has ceased to e0ist. 'r" rather" it has ceased to matter. &o longer do we tackle the issues head on. &o longer do we orce people to adapt to their machines. .e neither ight against technology nor consciously adapt ourselves to it. (verything happens naturally" <by orce o circumstances"< because the proli eration o techni5ues" mediated by the media" by communications" by the universali6ation o images" by changed human discourse" has out lanked prior obstacles and integrated them progressively into the process. It has encircled points o resistance" which then tend to dissolve. It has done all this without any hostile reaction or re usal .... Insinuation or encirclement does not involve any program o necessary adaptation to new techni5ues. (verything takes place as in a show" o ered reely to a happy crowd that has no problems. I+I It is not that society and culture are managing to assimilate technology. $ather" technology is swallowing culture. Three actors" according to (llul" prevent us rom mastering technologyB 2irst" <rational autonomy is less and less re erred to those who command machines and corporations and is more and more dependent on the sel 7regulation o technical networks.< .e cannot help de erring to the reason that seems so power ully operative in our machines and in their patterns o connection. <The system re5uires it< has become an accepted and o ten unavoidable 3usti ication o human behavior. Second" the technological thrust has become too diverse" too ubi5uitous" too polydimensional or us to guide or pass value 3udgments on it. I we cannot see clearly in what direction things are going" then we cannot orient ourselves in the manner re5uired or mastery. Third" the di66ying acceleration o change ensures that any attempt at mastery is always too late. .e are inally beginning to acknowledge more reely the monstrous perversities o television. 9ut can we now" or e0ample" disentangle politics" sports" or commerce rom these perversities? The underlying sense o helplessness provoked by our inability to master technology may account or the widespread" i vague" hope now vested in <emergent order"< which many take to be the natural outcome o burgeoning comple0ity. 'ddly" what will emerge is commonly e0pected to be benign. T.o faces of techno!ogy I " as (llul-s remarks suggest" runaway technology has achieved a stranglehold over society" it seems at irst glance a strangely schi6oid grip. :ust consider this set o parado0es 77 or apparent parado0es 77 relating to computers and the &etB #he arado1 of distributed authority and centrali+ation The networked computer" we are re5uently told" decentrali6es and democrati6es. 9y placing knowledge and universal tools o communication in the hands o (veryman" it subverts oppressive authority. Hierarchical structures" ocusing power upon a narrow circle at the top" give way to distributed" participative networks. &o one can control these networksB <the &et treats censorship like a mal unction" and routes around it.< I1I Some observers even ind support or a principle o anarchy here. And yet" many who have celebrated most loudly the &et-s liberating powers are now sounding the shrillest warnings about the dangers o totalitarian oppression by intrusive governments or money7grabbing corporations. The earsome means o centrali6ed" hierarchical control? &etworked computersD In general" arguments or the centrali6ing and decentrali6ing cleverness o the computer continue to lourish on roughly e5ual terms. #he arado1 of intelligence and athology The &etB an instrument o rationali6ation erected upon an inconceivably comple0 oundation o computeri6ed logic 77 an ine0haustible ount o lucid <emergent order.< 'r" the &etB madhouse" bi6arre !nderground" scene o lame wars and psychopathological acting out" universal red7light district. <*ou need a chapter on se0"< I was told by one reviewer o an early dra t o this bookH and he was right" or pornography and erotica drive a substantial percentage o &et tra ic. The &etB a nearly in inite repository o human e0perience converted into o+9ective data and in ormation 77 a universal database supporting all uture advances in knowledge and economic productivity. 'r" the &etB per ected gossip millH means or spreading rumors with lightning rapidityH universal source o meanings reduced to a lowest common denominatorH ocean o dubious in ormation rom which I ilter my own" tiny and arbitrary rivulet" mostly o unknown origin. #he arado1 of ower and owerlessness Computeri6ed technology gives us the power and the reedom to accomplish almost anything. .e can e0plore space" or alter the genetic terms o a human destiny. .e can make the individual atom dance to our own tune" or coordinate scores o thousands o employees around the globe in gargantuan" multinational organi6ations.

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*et all the while we ind ourselves driven willy7nilly by the technological nisus toward a uture whose broad shape we can neither oresee nor alter. The uture is something that happens to us. The possibilities o our reedom" it seems" vanish into the necessities imposed by the tools o our reedom. I4I #he arado1 of distance and immediacy Television" video game" and computer put the world at a distance rom me. I e0perience everything at one or more removes. All the marvels rom all the depths o cyberspace are unneled onto a s5uare oot or two o <user inter ace"< where they are re7presented as sur ace eatures o my screen. I can survey everything on this screen in a per ectly sa e and insulated manner" interacting with it even as I remain passively detached rom the world lying behind it. *et this same" inert screen easily cripples my ability to behold the world rom a re lective distance" or rom a sel 7possessed stance. It has been shown that viewers o the evening news typically remember ew details o what they saw and heard" and cannot 3udge accurately what little they do recall. I8I #rogrammers and readers o the &et news ind themselves yielding to obsessive" yet poorly ocused and semiautomatic habits. The video game player-s conscious unctioning retreats into the re le0es o hands and ingers. In general" the distance re5uired or contemplation gives way" through the intervening screen" to a kind o abstract distance across which hal 7conscious" automatic mechanisms unction most easily. 'ne veteran &et user" apparently welcoming these tendencies" puts the matter this wayB In JStanley Eubrick-s ilmK :;;1" the astronauts are shown poring over structural diagrams o their spacecra t. In the movie" they e0amine" manipulate" and re3ect several high7de inition maps each second. I recall thinking at the time that this was absurd. Since then" I now routinely skim and re3ect a screen7 ull si6ed message in about a second" and with our video game trained children" perhaps Eubrick-s vision will be accurate. I;I The e icient distance rom which such a user interacts with the person and meaning behind the te0t can hardly be a ref$ective distance. It is more like a re le0ive and uninvolved immediacy. 1 & t a! e&2race ,iven such parado0ical 3u0tapositions" one might wish to say" <(llul is wrong. Technology does not have us in a stranglehold. (verything depends on how we use technology 77 and we can use it in drastically di erent ways.< 9ut this is too simple. These 3u0tapositions" it turns out" are not alternative paths we are ree to choose. The apparently contradictory tendencies belong together. They are comple0 and pernicious unities signaling a threatened loss o reedom. .e need to look again at the parado0es" but only a ter irst acknowledging the intimate nature o our mutual embrace with computers. Several eatures o this embrace stand outB

The computer took shape in the human mind be ore it was reali6ed in the world.

The computer was thou)ht be ore it was built. It is not that the inventors o the computer either considered or understood all the conse5uences o their handiwork 77 ar rom it. Subse5uent developments have no doubt caught them as unprepared as the rest o us. 9ut" still" they had to conceive the essential nature o the computer be ore they could build it. That nature there ore lives both in the conceived machine and the conceiving mind" and the conse5uences likewise low rom both sources. This remains true even when we ind ourselves lacking su icient depth o awareness to foresee those conse5uences. In other words" it is not at all clear that the <computational paradigm< belongs more to the computer than to the human mind. %oreover" while this line o thought applies preeminently to the computer" which is a kind o dulled" mechanical re lection o the human intellect" it has a much wider bearing than is commonly thought. -very cultural arti act approaching us rom the outside also has an <inside"< and this inside is at the same time our inside. The long" cultural process leading to the automobile-s invention illustrates this well. The mind capable o imagining an early automobile was a mind already relating to physical materials" speed" conspicuous consumption" noise" pollution" mechanical arti acts" time" space" and the esthetics o machines in a manner characteristic o the modern era. It is hard to imagine any subse5uent e ects o the automobile not already at least implicit in this mindset" even i it is true 77 as it surely is 77 that the automobile played its own" orce ul role in magni ying the pree0istent movements o the .estern psyche. It is not evident" then" how one is 3usti ied in speaking unambiguously o the automo+i$e4s effects" as opposed to the conse&uences of our own inner $ife 77 o which the automobile itsel is another result. %ore concretelyB how could the town-s conversion to a spread7
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out" impersonal" rationali6ed" streetlight7 controlled" machine7adapted metropolis have been unpremeditated" when a prototype o this uture was care ully laid out on the loor o the irst assembly7line actory? To reckon with the inside o technology is to discover continuity. This is as true o the automobile assembly line as it is o the automobile itsel . Speaking o Henry 2ord-s manu acturing innovations" %IT social scientist Charles Sabel remarks that <it was as i the 2ord engineers" putting in place the crucial pieces o a giant 3igsaw pu66le" suddenly made intelligible the ma3or themes o a century o industriali6ation.< I=I (ven the < reedom and independence< given by the automobile were pre igured on the actory loor. .e are" o course" ree to go wherever we like in our isolating" gasoline7powered bubbles. 9ut a culture o isolation means that there is no there to get to" and in any case we ind ourselves overwhelmingly constrained by the mani old necessities o the system that gave us our reedom in the irst place 77 costs o car" maintenance" and insurance" crowded highways" incessant noise and vibration" physical enervation" rustrating e0penditures o time sitting behind a wheel. Here again" however" the early automobile worker e0perienced this same <liberation"< because he and his employer already participated in a mindset much like ours. 2reed rom meaning ul interaction with others" and given a nice" rational" private task o his own" he ound himsel now bound to the relentless logic and constraints o the assembly line and the overall production system. In sum" the social e ects o the automobile have not entirely blindsided us. They are at least in part the ul illment o our own visions and long7standing habits o thought. And what is true o the automobile is even more true o the computer" which" you might say" is the direct crystalli6ation and representation o our habits o thought. This points to the second eature o our computational embraceB

.hat we embed in the computer is the inert and empty shadow" or abstract re lection" o the past operation o our own intelligence.

'ur e0periment with the computer consists o the e ort to discover every possible aspect o the human mind that can be e0pressed or echoed mechanically 77 simulated by a machine 77 and then to reconstruct society around those aspects. In other words" a ter a ew centuries o philosophical reductionism" we are now venturing into a new" practical reductionismB we are determined to ind out how much o our mental unctioning we can in fact delegate to the computer. There are two primary routes o delegation. .e can" in the irst place" impart our own words to the computer in the orm o program data or the contents o databases. As taken up and <respoken< by the computer" these are always old words" dictionary words" shorn o <speaker-s meaning< 77 that is" stripped o the speci ic" creative meanings a ully conscious speaker acting in the present moment always breathes through his words. That is why" or e0ample" e orts at machine translation ail badly whenever the computer must deal with highly meaning ul language not e0plainable strictly in terms o dictionary de initions. To be employed e ectively by the computer 77 or shared between computers 77 words must represent a generali6able" abstract" <least common denominator< o the a$ready 'nown e0pressive possibilities. These words always speak out o the past. They represent no present" cognitive activity. The computer manipulates the corpses o a once7living thinking. Secondly" as programmers we abstract rom the products o our thinking a logical structure" which we then engrave upon the computer-s logic circuits. This structure is empty 77 much as the bare record o a poem-s meter" abstracted rom the poem itsel " is empty. &evertheless" the logical structure was abstracted from a once7living se5uence o thoughts" and it is mapped to an active" electronic mechanism. So the mechanism" at a level o pure abstraction" re lects the emptied" logical structure o the thoughts. .e can now use this programmatic mechanism to reanimate the a orementioned word7corpses. That is" the corpses begin to dance through their silicon graveyard" their sti ened meanings activated rather like dead rog legs 3erking convulsively to the imperatives o an electrical beat. In this way" the abstract ghost o past human thinking takes e0ternal hold upon the embalmed word7shells o past meanings and" like a poltergeist" sets them in motion. All this accounts or certain characteristic traits o so tware 77 in particular" the notorious brittleness" the user7un riendliness" and the penchant or occasional" ba ling responses rom le t ield. At the same time" given our willingness to base more and more o society-s unctioning upon the computer" there is a natural adaptation o human behavior and institutions to these rigidities. This may not seem onerous" however" or we still recogni6e the words and logic o the computer as somehow our own" even i they are only distant and brittle re lections o what is most human. Indeed" the willingness o users to personi y computers based on the crudest mechanical manipulation o a ew words is well attested. I>I It is reasonable to e0pect that" as we adapt to the computer-s re5uirements" the rigidities may no longer seem 5uite so rigid. .e should keep in mind" there ore" that the slowly improving <user7 riendliness< o computers may put on display not only the ingenuity o human7computer inter ace e0perts" but also the evolving <computer7 riendliness< o users.
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Automated telephone answering systems" made possible by computers" illustrate all this at an e0tremely simple level. They stitch ragments o recorded human speech onto an Fo ten woe ully spareG skeleton o logic. &o one is present behind the manipulated voiceH the caller con ronts echoes rom the past" calculated in advance to match <all possible situations.< .hatever her task Ftelephone answering system or otherwiseG" the programmer must build up a logical structure abstracted rom the task" then map it to the computer-s internal structure and hang appropriate words For dataG upon it. In attempting to make her program more le0ible" she inds hersel elaborating and re ining its logic in an ever more comple0 ashion. The e ort is to build upward rom the simple" on7o <logic gates< constituting the computer-s undamental capability" until an intricate logical structure is derived that corresponds to the structure o the target task. .hat is not so o ten noticed is that" in carrying out her work" the programmer hersel moves along a path opposite to the one she lays out or the computer. .here the computer would ascend rom logic to meaning" she must descend rom meaning to logic. That is" the computer" ollowing a set o logical tracings" invokes certain Fsecond7handG meanings by re7presenting te0t that the programmer has care ully associated with those tracings. She" on the other hand" must grasp the orm and meaning o a human unction be ore she can abstract its logical structure. I she has no direct e0perience" no ability to apprehend meanings" no understanding o things" then she has nothing from which to abstract. There is" however" no symmetry in these opposite movements. A sense or logical structure emerges only rom prior understanding" and is not its basis. As a starting point in its own right" logic leads nowhere at all 77 it can never bring us to content. Content always arises rom a pree0istent word" a pree0istent meaning" or whose genesis the computer itsel cannot claim responsibility. )espite what I have called the <brittleness< o computation" we should not underestimate the programmer-s ability to pursue her logical analysis with ever greater subtletyH the motions she imparts to the corpses in the graveyard can be made to look more and more li elike. Certainly the automated answering system can be rami ied almost in initely" gaining cleverness beyond current imagination. 9ut the stitched7together voice will nevertheless remain a voice rom the past Fno one is really thereG" and the system-s behavior will remain the restricted e0pression o the programmer-s previous analysis. I?I

The computer gains a certain autonomy 77 runs by itsel 77 on the strength o its embedded re lection o human intelligence. .e are thus con ronted rom the world by the active powers o our own" most mechanistic mental unctioning.

The computer is the embodiment o all those aspects o our thinking that are automatic" deterministic" algorithmic 77 all those aspects that can" on the strength o the past" run by themselves" without any need or conscious presence. It was" o course" already our strong tendency in the Industrial Age to embed intelligence in mechanisms" which thereby gained increasing ability to run by themselves. Take the intricate" intelligent articulations o a modern loom" add electrical power" and you have an ability to operate independently ar e0ceeding the reach o a simple hand loom. (very active mechanism o this sort 77 whether simple or comple0 77 creates a local ne0us o cause and e ect" o determinism" to which the worker must assimilate himsel . Computeri6ation universali6es this ne0us. (verywhere is <here"< and everyone 77 or every machine 77 must there ore speak the appropriate languages" ollow the necessary protocols. )istributed intelligence is a means or tyin) thin)s to)ether with the aid o everything in human consciousness that operates at a mechanistic level. Things that run by themselves can now embrace the whole o society. %any have claimed that computers free us rom an older determination by machines. This is alse. .hat is true is that" within a certain sphere" computers give us greater le0ibility. This" however" is not a new principleH rom the very beginning the increasing comple0ity o machines has led to improved le0ibility. Computers simply raise these powers o le0ibility to a dramatically higher level. .hat advanced machines give us is a more re ined ability to do things. It is a purely instrumental gain" remaining within the deterministic realm o material cause and e ect. 2reedom" on the other hand" has to do with our ability to act out o the uture 77 a creatively envisioned uture 77 so as to reali6e conditions not already implicit in past causes. The automobile gives me an immediate gain in outward reedom" enabling me to go places I could not go be ore. 9ut reedom is not outward" and it turns out that a culture built around the automobile Falong with numerous other help ul machinesG may actually constrain my ability to act out o the uture. It is true that these machines vastly broaden my physical" instrumental options. 9ut i I
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begin to think about my li e-s purposes Fsomething all the distracting machinery o my li e may discourageG" and i I come to eel that something is amiss 77 that I have somehow been betraying my own meanin)s 77 I then discover mysel bound to a matri0 o nearly inescapable necessities imposed by all the mechanisms to which my li e must con orm. I have little room" in that conte6t" to act out o conviction" to e0press my own most compelling values" to choose a di erent 'ind o li e. That is" I have great di iculty allowing my li e to low toward me rom the creative uture. Instead" I am likely to coast along" carried by circumstances. This is why the salient social problems o our day seem to have gone systemic. &o one is responsible. &o one can do anything. #oint to any challenge" rom the drug culture to environmental pollution to regional amine" and the individual can scarcely eel more than a helpless rustration be ore the impersonal and never75uite7graspable causes. The problems are <in the nature o things.< It is as i a di use and malignant intelligence 77 a )3inn 77 had escaped human control and burrowed into the entire machinery o our e0istence. Intelligence 77 even in its most mechanical aspect 77 is not an evil. 9ut it needs to be placed in the service o something higher. Intelligence that unctions rom below upward 77 as in a machine 77 creates a global" sel 7sustaining mechanism that binds me" unless I meet it with a still stronger power. The operation o my intelligence should descend rom that place in me where I am present and ree. This is the challenge or today. It is a challenge" not 3ust with respect to the computer" but with respect to the ree and un ree activities o my own consciousness.

Having reconceived my own interior as computation" and having then embedded a re lection o this interior in the computer" I compulsively seek ul illment 77 the completion o mysel 77 through the <inter ace.<

%achines bearing our re lections are a power ul invitation or psychological pro3ection. Such pro3ection re5uires a translation rom inner to outer 77 rom interior awareness to e0terior activity. This translation is e0actly what public discourse about computers and the &et presents to us on every handB te0t instead o the wordH te0t processing or program e0ecution instead o thin'in)H in ormation instead o meanin)H connectivity instead o communityH algorithmic procedure instead o wi$$ed human +ehaviorH derived images instead o immediate e6perience. #sychologists tell us that the outward pro3ection o inner contents typically signi ies an alienation rom those contents. It also provokes an unconscious" misguided" and potentially dangerous e ort to recover <out there< what actually has been lost <in here.< That is" despite the pro3ection" our need to intensi y and deepen our inner li e remains primaryH driven by that need" we may seek misguided ul illment out where we have unwittingly <thrown< ourselves 77 behind the inter ace. 'n the &et. The symptoms o this sadly misdirected striving are all around us. They are evident" or e0ample" in the obsessive programmer" who eels the undiscovered logical law in his program to be a personal a ront 77 an intolerable ri t in his own soul. Conversely" the thought o e0ecuting the program and inding everything suddenly <working< holds out the prospect o ultimate happiness. The ultimacy" however" proves a mirage" or the ne0t day For the ne0t hourG he is working 3ust as compulsively on the new" improved version. All this recalls the in atuated lover" who pro3ects his soul upon the beloved. Thirsting passionately or the one" crucial gesture that will spell his eternal bliss" he receives it only to ind" a ter the brie est interlude" that his thirst has been redoubled rather than 5uenched. A similar compulsion seems to drive the recent" unhinged mania or the <in ormation superhighway.< The widespread" almost palpable ear o being le t out" o missing the party" is one telltale symptom. 'thers include the lotterylike hope o discovering <great inds< out on the &etH the investment o huge amounts o time in largely un ocused" undisciplined" semianonymous" and randomly orming" randomly dispersing electronic discussion groupsH the entrenched conviction that whatever-s <happening< on the &et Fwe-re never 5uite sure 3ust what it isG surely represents our uture 77 it is usH and" most obviously" the sudden" unpredictable" and obsessive nature o society-s preoccupation with the &et. 9ut perhaps the most poignant symptom o the pro3ection o a lost interiority lies in the new electronic mysticism. Images o a global" electronically mediated collective consciousness" o Teilhard de Chardin-s omega point" and o machines crossing over into a new and superior orm o personhood are ri e on the &et. Channelers channel onto the &et. #agans conduct rituals in cyberspace. %ost o this is unbearably silly" but as a widespread phenomenon it is di icult to dismiss. The &ew Age" it appears" will be won with surprising ease. The wondrously adept principle o <emergence< accounts or everything. It will materiali6e delight ul new organs o higher awareness" not cancerous tumors. As one &et contributor enthusesB The nature o the organism resulting is the only 5uestion. ...Strangely" I think this organi6ing into a spiritual whole will occur without much e ort. .hen human spirits gather in a common purpose" something happens. I1AI Indeed" something happens. 9ut what grows upward rom mechanism" easily" automatically" running by itsel " is not human reedom. 2reedom is always a struggle. .hat happens easily" on the other hand" is whatever we have already set in motion" having woven it
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into the dead but e ective logic o our e0ternal circumstances" and into the sleepwalking strata o our own minds. It is not so easy to call down and materiali6e a reely chosen uture. The belie that the &et is ushering us toward altogether new and redemptive social orms is a patently dangerous one. It amounts to a pro3ection o human responsibility itsel onto our machines. The conse5uences o this can only be unsavory. .hat I pro3ect unconsciously into the world 77 whether as mystical hope or more mundane e0pectation 77 is never my highest and most responsible mental unctioning. It is" rather" my least developed" most primitive side. <This way lie dragons.< To.ar# a hyperte,t of the s 2conscio s Here" then" are select eatures o the human7computer liaisonB The computer too' shape in the human mind +efore it was rea$i1ed in the wor$d2 *hat we em+ed in the computer is the inert and empty shadow! or a+stract ref$ection! of the past operation of our own inte$$i)ence2 The computer )ains a certain autonomy // runs +y itse$f // on the stren)th of its em+edded ref$ection of human inte$$i)ence2 *e are thus confronted from the wor$d +y the active powers of our own! most mechanistic menta$ functionin) . Havin) reconceived my own interior as computation! and havin) then em+edded a ref$ection of this interior in the computer! % compu$sive$y see' fu$fi$$ment // the comp$etion of myse$f // throu)h the interface . .e now have a more satis actory perspective upon the parado0es discussed toward the beginning o this chapter. It is not really odd" or e0ample" that a medium o logic" ob3ective in ormation" and arti icial intelligence should also be a medium noted or inducing pathologies and sub3ectivity. &or is it odd that a medium o calculated distances should also invite visceral immediacy. 9oth 3u0tapositions are inevitable whenever the highest elements in human thinking give way to what is mechanical and automatic. #he machine0s ainless e1tension A comparison between television and computers will help to clari y these 3u0tapositions. Television presents me with a se5uence o images in which I cannot intervene as in normal li e" and so the images become mere passive stimulation. &ot even my eyes per orm their real7world workH instead they rest upon a lat sur ace lacking all depth Fdespite the contrary illusionG. It is not surprising" then" i I lapse into a near7hypnotic state" my higher aculties 5uiescent. 9ut the computer poses ar greater risks. I can intervene in its processes 77 in act" it seems to encourage this with an ever greater energy and le0ibility 77 and I thereby gain a sense o meaning ul activity. 9ut the computational processes in which I intervene re lect and actively elicit only the machinelike dimensions o my own nature. That this is nevertheless something o my nature makes it all the more natural to anthropomorphi6e the machine" and to ind even the most primitive interaction with it signi icant. *et all the while I may be doing nothing more than yielding to the machine-s Fand my ownG automatisms. It is e0actly in these lowest strata o my psyche that I give e0pression to pathologies and the worst e0cesses o sub3ectivity. Some things are" I think" 3ust too close to us or simple recognition. 'ne o these things is the computer screen I am now looking at. Eeystroke by keystroke" click by click" command by command" it presents at the irst level o approach a completely deterministic ield o action 77 one I personally happen to live with or much o the day. This mediation o li e by mechanism is uni5ue in all o history. I might use ully compare it to my daily <inter ace< with my amily. %y wi e-s reactions" or e0ample" are not always predictableD I must always e0pect a surprising response rom her 77 one not ully speci iable in terms o my past knowledge o <the way she works.< She is orever re7making hersel " which in turn re5uires me to re7make mysel . .ith the computer" on the other hand" it is rather as i I were enclosed in a large bo0" surrounded by panels ull o levers" cranks" gearwheels" and shuttles" through which all my interaction with the world was channeled 77 e0cept that the computer-s superiority in e iciency and le0ibility is so great" and my adaptation to its mechanisms so complete" that I now scarcely notice the underlying terms o my employment contract. Such an encompassing" deterministic ield o action was inconceivable not so long ago 77 even or the worker in an industrial7era actory. &ot everythin) was assimilated to his machine. 9ut my screen 77 as a ront or all the coordinated" computational processes running behind it 77 now overspreads all that I do with the dulling gla6e o mechanism. And my own condition is such that I eel no burden in this. &o actory worker ever stood so wholly enchanted be ore his machine as I do. 'nly by piercing throu)h this e0ternal" mediating gla6e 77 only by learning to interact with a human interior somewhere <out there< 77 do I transcend the determining mesh. &or is this so easy. All those computational processes o er previously unheard o opportunities or merely reacting without ever having entertained in any true sense another human being. #he mathematical rigor of our lower nature It is not 3ust the other person I risk losingH it is mysel as well. (ven more than television" the &et robs me o mastery over my own thoughts 77 or" at least" will do so unless I can set against it wake ul inner resources more power ul than the automatisms it both embodies and so easily triggers. The capacity or concentration" or mature 3udgment" or the purpose ul direction o an in5uiry" or deep and sustained re lection 77 these dissipate all too readily into the blur o random bytes" images" and computational processes assaulting my nervous system. Habits o association 77 which are the lower organism-s version o hyperte0t" and are the antithesis o sel 7mastery 77 tighten their hold over my mental li e. Association" unlike true thinking" is automatic" physically <in ected"< less than ully conscious. It inevitably e0presses a pathology.
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The screen-s distance is the peculiar sort o distance imposed by abstraction" which is hardly the basis or penetrating contemplation. .hen a person becomes an abstraction" I can respond to him in an immediate" dismissive" gut7driven manner. I need no longer attend to his inner being. And yet" the habit o such attention is the only thing between me and brutali6ation. In sum" cold distance and hard logic do not really stand in contradiction to visceral immediacy and pathology. $ather" in their very one7sidedness they imp$y these results. .e already see a hint o this in television advertising. 'n the one hand" I may scarcely pay attention to the advertisement 77 and when I do note it" I may be content to scorn it unthinkingly. It scarcely seems to touch me at my <ob3ective distance.< Still" my buying choices are a ected as I proceed to act in an automatic and unconscious way. .hatever passes into me while circumventing my highest conscious unctioning" sinks down to where it works beyond my control. .here are we mathematically FstatisticallyG predictable? The advertising e0ecutive can answerB wherever we act least consciously" rom our <chemistry.< And through our interactions with computers the link between <mathematical rigor< and raw" unre lective" animal7like behavior can be e0tended ar beyond the world o advertising. 3inds of ower The parado0 o power and powerlessness must likewise be seen as a consistent unity" or the two e ects operate on di erent planes. I can e0perience manipu$ative power even as I ind mysel unable to alter things meanin)fu$$y. In act" a one7sided ocus on manipulation all too naturally occludes meaningH or e0ample" when I e ectively control others" I lose any meaning ul inner connection to them. I then discover that all things that really count have moved beyond my sphere o in luence. 9ut the 5uestion o power is woven together with the parado0 o centrali6ation and decentrali6ation" which will carry us closer to the heart o them all. "here is the centerA Cangdon .inner observes that <dreams o instant liberation rom centrali6ed control have accompanied virtually every important new technological system introduced during the past century and a hal .< He 5uotes :oseph E. Hart" a pro essor o education writing in 1?+4B Centrali6ation has claimed everything or a centuryB the results are apparent on every hand. 9ut the reign o steam approaches its endB a new stage in the industrial revolution comes on. (lectric power" breaking away rom its servitude to steam" is becoming independent. (lectricity is a decentrali6ing orm o powerB it runs out over distributing lines and subdivides to all the minutiae o li e and need. .orking with it" men may eel the thrill o control and reedom once again. .hat Hart ailed to notice" according to .inner" was that electricity is <centrally generated and centrally controlled by utilities" irms destined to have enormous social power< ar e0ceeding what was seen in the days o steam. I11I (llul makes a similar point when he notes how computers have made an obvious decentrali6ation possible in banking F3ust consider all the AT% machinesG" <but it goes hand in hand with a national centrali6ation o accounting.< I1+I I do not dispute the important truth in these remarks. 9ut I believe we can also look beyond them to a more horri ying truth. #he e1ternali+ation of instrumental reason The totalitarian spirit" many have assumed" always rules rom a distinct" physically identi iable locus o authority" and propagates its powers outwardly rom that locus along discrete" recogni6able channels. That is" it always re5uires a despotic center and a hierarchical chain o command. 9ut there is another possibility. (very totalitarianism attempts to coerce and sub3ugate the human spirit" thereby restricting the range o ree e0pression so important or the development o both individual and community. .ho or what does the coercing is hardly the main point. .hether it is a national dictator" oligarchy" parliament" robber baron" international agency" ma ia" tyrannical parent" or no one at a$$ 77 it doesn-t really matter. And what the computational society begins to show us is how totalitarianism can be a despotism en orced by no one at all. To understand this we need to recogni6e that the computer" due to its re lected" ro6en intelligence" is both universal and one7sided. It is universal because the logic o intelligence is by nature universal" linking one thing unambiguously to another and thereby orming a coherent grid o relations e0tending over the entire sur ace o every domain it addresses. 9ut at the same time whatever is <o 7grid< is ignored. The computer pretends with e0traordinary le0ibility to do <everything"< and there ore what is not covered by its peculiar sort o <everything< drops unnoticed rom the picture. I11I %oreover" the intelligence we-re speaking o is an em+edded intelligence" operating in the machinery o our daily e0istence. .here this intelligence links one thing to another according to a universal <hard logic"< so also does the physically constraining machinery. And yet" the whole basis o the computer-s power derives rom the act that no one 77 no one present 77 is in control. The logic and the machinery are" at the level o their own operation" both sel 7su icient and without any necessary center. I the se5uence o
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mathematical statements in a strictly logical demonstration possesses no center Fand it does notG" neither does the elaborated" computational mechanism onto which the se5uence is impressed. (llul-s re erence to <a national centrali6ation o accounting< is not inconsistent with this decentering. An accounting database and its associated so tware must e0ist somewhere" and we can easily imagine that someone controls access to it. 9ut this is less and less true today. )atabases can be distributed" and in any case" direct or indirect access to them may be spread widely throughout all the di erent" interrelated activities and unctions o a business. It is then truer to say that the system as a who$e determines access than that any particular person or group does. In act" anyone who arbitrarily intervenes Feven i it is the person <in charge<G is likely to ace a lawsuit or having disrupted an entire business and thousands o lives. Technologies o embedded intelligence inevitably tend toward interdependence" universali6ation" and rationali6ation. &o cli5ue o conspiring power7brokers is responsible or the current pressures to bring the telephone" television" cable" and computing industries into <harmony.< &o monopolistic or centrali6ed power" in any conventional sense" decrees that suppliers connect to the computer networks and databases o the retail chains 77 a re5uirement nevertheless now threatening the e0istence o small" technically unsophisticated supply operations. F%ost o them will doubtless adapt.G &or does anyone in particular create the pressure or digiti6ation" by which the makers o cameras and photocopiers are waking up to ind they are computer manu acturers. And as the amount o so tware in consumer products doubles each year Fcurrently up to two kilobytes in an electric shaverG" I14I no one will re&uire that the various appliances speak common" standardi6ed languages. Again" it is no accident that the introduction o robots 77 di icult in e0isting actories 77 leads to a more radical redesign o manu acturing than one might irst have thoughtB A robot re5uires a whole series o related e5uipment" that is" another conception o the business. Its place is really in a new actory with automation and computeri6ation. This new actory relates machines to machines without inter erence. I18I In this relation o machine to machine there is much to be gained. 9ut the gain is always on an instrumental level" where we manipulate the physical stu o the world. 9y brilliantly ocusing a kind o e0ternali6ed intelligence at that level we may" i we are not care ul" eventually lose our humanity. Allow me a brie tangential maneuver. $an and insect Roologist Herman #oppelbaum comments that the human hand" so o ten called the per ect tool" is in an important sense not that at all. Cook to the animals i you want limbs that are per ect toolsB The human hand is not a too$ in the way the e0tremities o animals are. As a tool it lacks per ection. In the animal kingdom we ind tools or running" climbing" swimming" lying etc. but" i man wants to use his hand to per orm similar eats" he has to invent his tools. 2or this he turns to an invisible treasure chest o capacities he bears within himsel o which the remarkable shape o the human hand itsel appears to be a mani estation. A being with lesser capacities than man-s would be helpless with such a hand7con iguration. I1;I (ndowed with nothing very <special< physically" we contain the archetypes o all tools within ourselves. The tools we make may be rigid in their own right" but they remain le0ible in our hands. .e are able to rule them" bending them to our purposes. The 5uestion today" however" is whether we are entrusting that rule itsel to the realm over which we should be ruling. Insects o er a disturbing analogy. It is #oppelbaum again who remarks on the absence o clear physical links to e0plain the order o an ant heap or beehive. The ama6ingly intricate unity seems to arise rom nowhere2 <(ven the 5ueen bee cannot be regarded as the visible guardian and guarantor o the totality" or i she dies" the hive" instead o disintegrating" creates a new 5ueen.< I1=I As a picture" this suggests something o our danger. .here is the <totalitarian center< o the hive? There is none" and yet the logic o the whole remains coherent and uncompromising. It is an e0ternal logic in the sense that it is not wake ul" not sel 7aware" not consciously assentingH it moves the individual as i rom without. A recent book title" whether intentionally or not" captures the ideaB Hive 3ind. It is into 3ust such an automatic and e0ternal logic that we appear willing to convert our <invisible treasure chest o capacities.< 9ut i our inner mastery over tools is itsel allowed to harden into a mere tool" then we should not be surprised when the coarsened re lection o this mastery begins reacting upon us rom the world. An important slogan o the day" as we saw earlier" bows to the truthB <what we have made" makes us.< I1>I The slogan is not hard to appreciate. Civing in homes whose convenience and mechanical sophistication outstrip the most elaborate actory o a century ago" most o us 77 i le t to our own devices within a natural environment once considered unusually hospitable 77 would be at risk o rapid death. In this sense" our system o domestic conveniences amounts to a li e7support system or a badly incapacitated organism. It is as i a pervasive" e0ternali6ed logic" as it progressively encases our society" bestows upon us something like the e0traordinary" speciali6ed competence o the social insects" along with their matching rigidities. .hat ought to be our distinctive" human le0ibility is sacri iced.
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2rom another angleB where you or I would once have sought help 5uite naturally rom our neighbors" thereby entering the most troublesome 77 but also the highest 77 dimensions o human relationship" we now apply or a bank loan or or insurance. &ot even a personal interview is necessary. It is a <transaction"< captured by transaction processing so tware and based solely upon standard" online data. (verything that once ollowed rom the 5ualities o a personal encounter 77 everything that could make or an e0ceptional case 77 has now disappeared rom the picture. The applicant is wholly sketched when the data o his past have been sub3ected to automatic logic. Any hope ul glimmer" iltering toward the sympathetic eye o a supportive ellow human rom a uture only now struggling toward birth" is lost in the darkness between bits o data. &or" in attempting to transcend the current system" can either the insurance employee or the applicant easily step outside it and respond neighbor7to7neighbor. The entire procedure has all the remarkable e iciency and necessity o the hive. So the parado0es o power and powerlessness" o centrali6ation and decentrali6ation" are not really parado0ical a ter all. .e can" i we wish" seek instrumental power in place o the reedom to achieve a distinctively human uture. .e can" i we wish" abdicate our present responsibility to act" de erring to an automatic intelligence dispersed throughout the hardware surrounding us. It scarcely matters whether that intelligence issues rom a <center< or not. .hat matters is how it binds us. .hatever binds us may always seem as i it came rom a center. .hether to call the automatic logic o the whole a center may be academic. The real 5uestion or the uture is no longer whether power issues rom many" dispersed groups o people or rom ew" centrali6ed groups. It is" rather" whether power issues rom within the ully awake individual or acts upon him rom the dark" obscure places where he still sleeps. I it is e0ercised wake ully" then it is not really power we-re talking about" but reedom and responsibility. 9ut i it is not e0ercised wake ully" then centrali6ation and decentrali6ation will increasingly become the same phenomenonB constraining mechanism that controls us as i rom without. The e! sive !ine 2et.een &an an# &achine 2or the third time" thenB does technology e0ert a stranglehold over us? And or the third time I will wage a minor delaying action" since this 5uestion is inseparable rom another" more general one to which we must brie ly nodB is technology nonneutral or neutral? That is" do technological arti acts" once deployed" coerce our social" political" and psychological development in directions over which we then have little control FnonneutralityG? 'r do the ma3or conse5uences depend largely upon how we reely choose to use those arti acts FneutralityG? 9ut to pose the 5uestion in this way is already to have lost the possibility o pro ound answer. 2or it is to posit that we are For are notG sub3ect to determining in luences acting upon us rom outside. The problem is that our arti acts do not really e0ist outside us in the irst place. How can I speak o technological neutrality or nonneutrality when what is <out there"< working on me rom without" is an abstract distillate o the intelligence working <in here<H and what is <in here"< guiding my use o technology" is a habit o mind that has long been tending toward the machinelike and e0ternal? .hen my own interior is one with the interior o the machine" who is unambiguously in luencing whom? The only answer I know to give to the 5uestion o technological neutrality is two oldB o course technology is neutral" or in the long run everything does depend upon how we relate to arti acts. And o course technology is not neutral" or what works independently in the arti act is our already established habits o thought and use. These answers still remain too sti " however" or they speak o the arti act as i " behind our pattern o interaction with it" there stood a simple given. 9ut there is no arti act at all apart rom the interior we share with it. This is true o all tools" although most obviously o the computer" in which we can place radically di ering abstracts o our consciousness. .e call those abstracts <programs.< The program clearly determines what sort o machine we-re dealing with. All this will be enough" I hope" to 3usti y an unusual tack in what ollows. I have spoken at length about the abstraction rom human consciousness o a shadow7intelligence or which we ind a mechanical e0pression" and o the countere ect this e0pression has upon the originating mind. It remains" however" to ocus upon what cannot be abstracted. I we are to avoid strangulation by technology 77 indeed" i we are to avoid simply becoming robots ourselves 77 it is to the distinctively human that we must turn. .e can ind our irst toehold here by considering the human being as learner. $eyon# shove!ing facts (very educational re ormer Fand nearly every educatorG reminds us that <the student should not be treated as an empty receptacle or acts.< As in most cases o widespread clamor or some popular value" however" the problem runs much deeper than the rhetoric. 2or e0ample" the respectable ormula 77 <don-t teach acts" but teach the student how to ac5uire knowledge on his own< 77 easily merges with the supposedly re3ected point o view. The student is still a receptacle or acts 77 it-s 3ust that he must learn to stu himsel " instead o being stu ed by someone else. I-m not sure there-s much di erence between the e5ually constipated outcomes o these two approaches.
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To state the matter as provocatively as possibleB what a student learns" considered solely as <ob3ective content"< never matters. The only thing that counts is how vividly" how intensely" how accurately and intentionally" and with what muscular ability to shape and trans orm itsel " his consciousness lays hold o a thing. The 5ualitative ullness o a thought" the orm o the student-s own" inner activity 77 and not the simplistic abstraction the activity is said to be <about< Fthat is" not its <in ormation content<G 77 is everything. The reason or this is simply that human consciousness does not <hold< acts about the worldH it is itsel the inside o the world. It does not lay hold o things" but rather becomes the things. 'ur need is not to <know the acts< about the truthH it is to become true. The discipline o consciousness is not a preparation or truth7gatheringH it is the increasingly harmonious resonance between the laws o the world and the laws o our own thinking activity" which are the same laws e0pressed outwardly and inwardly. There was a time when such distinctions would have been obvious 77 a time when man e0perienced himsel as a microcosm within the macrocosm" and when all knowledge was rightly elt to be knowledge o man. 9ut this is e0actly what a machine7adapted mind can only ind perple0ing or maddening. Such a mind wants acts contained in a database. It wants knowledge a+out thin)s rather than a sculpting and strengthening o the 'nowin) )esture. It wants truth rather than meaning 77 and its notion o truth has degenerated into mere logical consistency. 2or such a mind" the important thing about the statement" <Abraham Cincoln was killed in 1>;;"< is that it is alse. And" as a univocal proposition whose task is solely to identi y a coordinate on a timeline Fthat is" as a ew bits o in ormationG" so it is. 9ut no human being is capable o spea'in) such a proposition. So long as we remain conscious" we cannot utter or even conceive a statement wholly devoid o meaning and truth. The hapless student who says <1>;;< will to one degree or another still appreciate what it meant to be Abraham Cincoln" what it meant to preside over the Civil .ar" and what it meant to die at the war-s conclusion. The 5uestion is how fu$$y he will know these things. #erhaps very ully Fi he has deepened his own character and learned to know himsel wellG" or perhaps not very much at all Fi he has 3ust been taught <the acts<G. The teachers we remember or changing our lives did not convey some decisive act. $ather" we saw in them a stance we could emulate" a way o knowing and being we could desire or ourselves. Their teaching instructed us" and there ore remains with us" whereas the things taught Fi one insists on thinking in such termsG may well have lost their validity. This is why computers have so little to o er either teacher or student. I the student-s greatest hope is to learn rom his teacher what it can mean to be a human being acing a particular aspect o li e" then the implications o wholesale reliance upon computer7mediated instruction are grave indeed. ,ariations on being human .hat can it mean to con ront today-s computeri6ed technology as a human being? 'n the one hand" we ind ourselves locked in an intimate liaison with our machines" and with the machinelike tendencies in ourselves. .e are invited into a world o programmed responses and o database7receptacles collecting in ormation. 'n the other hand ... what? The answer" I think" is given in the 5uestion itsel . That isB on the other hand" the possibility o asking 5uestions" o changing" o trans orming ourselves 77 the reedom to act out o the uture rather than the past. 2reedom" however" is always ambiguous. #arado0ically 77 and this is a genuine parado0 77 the e0perience o reedom can never be anything but a movement toward reedom or away rom it. I we had per ect reedom" we could not know what reedom meant" or there would be no resistance against which to eel ree. And i we we were wholly determined" we could not know what reedom meant" or we would possess no answering e0perience o our own through which to recogni6e it. I1?I As things are" the healthy consciousness does have an e0perience o reedom 77 whether acknowledged or not 77 because it knows both possibility and constraint. Its struggle is always to accept responsibility and grow toward greater reedom. Surely" however" none o us will claim a per ectly healthy consciousness. .e always must reckon with impulses running contrary to reedom and responsibility. .e are" in the end" ree to use our reedom in order to abandon reedom. In act" the entire e ort to raise up machines in our image can also be read as our own willing descent toward the image o the deterministic machine. I will try to make this idea o a descent toward the machine a little more concrete. A great deal hinges upon how we choose to wrestle with the descent. The machine provides the necessary resistance against which we may 77 or may not 77 discover our reedom. Space of the .or!#, space of the progra&&er It is not particularly controversial to sayB we ind ourselves immersed ever more deeply in a kind o creeping virtual reality 77 television" electronic games" video con erencing" online shopping malls" escapist entertainment" virtual workplaces" images o rogs or online <dissection"< geography recast as graphical data" community reduced to the mutual e0change o te0t 77 all o which slowly deprives us o a uller world. 9ut every discussion o <virtual< and <real< 5uickly becomes problematic. Cines grow u66y. As the ighter plane-s cockpit encapsulates the pilot ever more securely within an instrument7 mediated environment" when does the preliminary training in a cockpit simulator cease to be mere simu$ation" becoming instead a recapitulation o the real thing?
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&oting astronaut :ohn ,lenn-s reported inability to eel an <appropriate awe< while circling the earth" Cangdon .inner comments that <synthetic conditions generated in the training center had begun to seem more Mreal- than the actual e0perience.< I+AI 9ut he might 3ust as well have saidB synthetic conditions were the actual e0perience. ,lenn-s immediate environment while loating above the earth was not much di erent rom his training environment. .hatever else we may think about the line separating the real world rom simulated worlds" the important point or the moment is that this line can be nudged rom either side. Certainly" rising levels o technical sophistication can lead to ever more realistic simulators. 9ut we should not orget that the human e0perience we-re simulating can become ever more abstract and mechanical 77 more simulable. 2urthermore" it is undeniable that this latter trans ormation has been intensively under way or the past several hundred years. 9eginning in the $enaissance" .estern man ound himsel cast out rom something like a <spatial plenum o wisdom< into an abstract container7space well described by the mathematical techni5ues o linear perspective. The plenum could never have been simulated with technologyH on the other hand" container7space is a$ready a simulation o sorts" and the increasingly abstract" computational processes o the human mind are the means o simulation. %y point here 77 actually" everything I have been saying 77 will be lost unless we can bring such distinctions as the one between plenum and container7space to some sort o 5ualitative awareness. .e saw earlier how 'wen 9ar ield" who has described the transition rom medieval to modern consciousness with delicate and penetrating sensitivity" once remarked that <be ore the scienti ic revolution the world was more like a garment men wore about them than a stage on which they moved.< He also re erred to the %iddle Ages as a time when the individual <was rather less like an island" rather more like an embryo" than we are.< I+1I .hat could this mean? #wo ways of seeing 'ur contemporary minds can" perhaps" gain a aint suggestion o the change 9ar ield is re erring to. Try looking toward an ob3ect in the middle distance without actually ocusing on it" but instead looking throu)h it. F)on-t simply ocus on another ob3ect behind it. I necessary" choose a spot on a wall" so that no background ob3ect substitutes or the spot.G %ost likely" you will ind this di icult at irst. The ob3ect in ront o you demands attention" instantly drawing your ocused ga6e and throwing your visual system into a kind o lat" perspective i0ation" with your line o sight centered on a nullity 77 the vanishing point. This <standard< sort o vision is rein orced by every one o the thousands o images we see daily 77 photographs" drawings" movies 77 all conveyed through the techni5ue o linear perspective. The art o linear perspective codi ies the view o a single" i0ed eye For camera lensG. It irst became a theoretically disciplined art in i teenth7century northern Italy" when a ew enterprising artisans were able to reconceive scenes in the world as sets o coordinates and vectors Flines o sightG. That reconception has moved ever closer to the heart o what it means or modern man to see. There is" however" another way o seeing. Tom 9rown" :r." the wilderness tracker" urges the critical importance o what he calls rela0ed" or wide7angle" vision. To accomplish this 77 and it re5uires practice 77 you must allow your eyes to rela0 <out o ocus"< so that the ob3ects directly in ront o you no longer claim sole attention on the visual stage. Instead" allow your alert attention F ree o sharp" visual ocusG to scan all the ob3ects in your ield o vision. To prevent your ga6e rom hardening into an uncomprehending stare" you should continually move your eyes as well" taking care only to prevent their ocusing on particular ob3ects as they move. *our ield o vision will now possess less clarity" but your breadth o awareness and ability to perceive what is going on around you will be greatly increased. 2ocused vision gives us only a ew degrees o clarity around the line o sight. $ela0ed vision removes this clear center and with it the dominance o the ob3ect in ront o us. The single" narrow beam o our attention becomes instead a broad" peripheral awareness that may mediate remarkable discoveries. 9rown claims that a habit o rela0ed vision Fcombined" o course" with periodic" brie reversions to ocused vision or purposes o clear identi icationG is essential or any pro ound penetration o nature" and is the usual style o vision or peoples who live close to nature. He reports" or e0ample" that when one is stalking an animal" a sudden shi t rom rela0ed vision to the more aggressive" I7 versus7ob3ect ocus will very likely startle the animal into light 77 the <spell< integrating the stalker seamlessly into his natural surroundings is broken. I++I Try the e0periment sometime. I " say" you walk slowly and attentively through the woods using rela0ed vision" you may well e0perience yoursel within the landscape rather di erently rom when you employ your more customary habits. *ou may even be able to imagine ever so slightly what it might have been like to wear the world as a garment instead o moving about in an abstract container7space 77 to be living so deeply in the world that you cannot look at it in anything like the modern sense. It is worth relating this sort o practical e0perience to our earlier discussion o linear perspective Fsee chapter ++G. .hy" or e0ample" did I re er above to our < lat" perspective i0ation"< since perspective" applied to art" yields what we take to be remarkably realistic" li elike" in7depth images?

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To say that our normal vision today is lat is not to say that it has no three7dimensional eel o spatial depth" or that eel is e0actly what we today mean by depth" and what the pre7 $enaissance painting" or e0ample" did not have. There is no disputing that we sometimes think we could almost step into the three7dimensional image. 9ut 9ar ield is telling us" as we have seen in chapter ++" that pre7$enaissance man was more likely to e0perience himsel a$ready in a work o art. And what is meant by <in< di ers greatly between these two cases. This di erence may be suggested by the contrast between ocused and rela0ed vision in the e0perience o the alert ourdoorsman. The point is that depth is now represented or us by a highly abstract" mathematically conceived container7space ull o ob3ects related only by their shared coordinate system Fwithin which we" too" kick aboutG 77 an <e0tensive< depth 77 whereas once the world-s depth was more <intensive"< with every ob3ect bound meaning ully to every other Fand to usG in a way that our perspective vision renders nearly impossible to e0perience. It is our vision that is lat" abstract" shallow" governed by sur aces without true insides. It lacks nothing in 5uanti iable information" but lacks nearly everything in wei)ht or 5ualitative si)nificance. Certainly the photograph and video screen are undeniably lat. The depth" as I have already mentioned" is illusory" our eyes being orced to remain ocused on a lat sur ace. 9ut this is how we have learned to see the world as well" ocusing always on particular" lat sur aces and e0periencing even depth as an e0ternal relation o sur aces. Today 77 it has not always been so 77 the world itsel arrives on the stage o our understanding <in mathematical perspective.< #o change our view oint" or grow blind I have conducted this little diversion on perspective or several reasons. It gives substance" in the irst place" to the 5uestion whether computer graphics has been con5uering the realities o our e0perience or our e0perience has been descending toward computer graphics. At the very least" a little historical awareness should convince us that the latter movement has actually occurred" whatever we make o the ormer one. I suspect" however" that both movements really amount to the same thing. The technical advances are real enough" but they can represent an approach toward human e0perience only to the e0tent that human e0perience is being altered toward the mechanical. Advancing technology is born o an increasingly technological mindset" which in turn lends itsel to being <con5uered< by technology. Second" our discussion also illustrates an earlier point about learningB the things we learn a+out do not count or very much. The real learning takes place 3ust so ar as our organs o cognition are themse$ves instructed and changed. A ter all" nearly everything that matters in the movement rom %iddle Ages to modernity lies in the di erent ways o thinking and seeing 77 in the &ua$ities o these activities. How can we understand these di erent 5ualities without gaining the le0ibility o mind that enables us to become" so to speak" di erent human beings? *ou might almost say that what distinguishes modern thinking is the act that it takes itsel to be nothing +ut aboutness 77 it has lost e0perience o its own 5ualities. 'ne result is a seeing that has been substantially reduced to an awareness o coordinates and o relative position on an electromagnetic spectrum" with little eel or what once gripped the human being through space and color. 2or the most part" it is only the artist today who still resonates with what ,oethe called the <deeds and su erings o light"< and who inds an ob3ective" revelatory depth in ,oethe-s characteri6ation o the eeling75ualities o the various colors. The promiscuous and purely stimulative use o <dramatic< colors Fnot to mention geometric ormsG in so much o computer graphics is well calculated to dull any sensitivity to the pro ound law ulness o color and orm in nature. Another result o our <aboutness< knowledge is the drive toward arti icial intelligence" where sel 7e0perience simply never enters the picture. .hen nothing is le t o the knower e0cept the abstractions he supposedly knows" then the machine can become a knower 77 or it" too" can <contain< these abstractions. In the third place" the story o linear perspective o ers a nice little morality tale. It might be tempting to dismiss Tom 9rown-s <rela0ed vision< as a kind o irresponsible dreaminess. &o doubt it may on occasion be that 77 but only when one-s alert" ever scanning attention dies away and the blindness o a vacant stare replaces it. 'nly" that is" when we cease our own" inner activity as knowers. 9ut this" interestingly" is a much more threatening limitation o the i0ed and ocused eye o perspective vision. Try looking at a point several eet away" without moving your eyes at all. This is very di icult 77 nearly impossible" in act" since the eyes will involuntarily shi t ever so slightly" and you will need to blink. &evertheless" you can readily observe that" 3ust so ar as you hold an unmoving ga6e" the entire ield o sight begins to blank out. In the laboratory" an image held constant by attachment to a contact lens ades to gray or black within two or three seconds. An unchanging pattern o stimulation on the retina blinds us. I " then" a perspective image codi ies the outlook o a single" i0ed eye" it codi ies a kind o blindness. 'ur eyes must continually strive toward a new view" and only by changing our view do we see. :ust as there is no true knowing that is not a continual trans ormation o the knower" so too 77 even at the most literal level 77 there is no true seeing that is not a continual trans ormation o the seer. -e#e&ptive #ea# en#s
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All the pieces are in place. I you have ollowed along sympathetically to this point" you may now e0pect some sort o resolution. <Surely he will tell us how he thinks we can remain masters o the computerD (0actly what trans ormation is he asking o us?< 9ut this is e0actly what I must not attempt. There can be no program" no algorithm" or mastering technology. 'ur automatic resort to algorithmic thinking is an indication o technology-s mastery o us. It shows how the limitations and tendencies o the computer have become at the same time limitations and tendencies o our minds. So the only <program< I can o er is the advice that we deprogram ourselves. It is curious how" amidst the all7but7insoluble problems o our day" it remains so easy to think Fhowever vaguelyG that every real problem must yield to some sort o straight orward" e0ternal doin) 77 i we could 3ust hit upon the right ormula. At the very least" we should go out and march. .rite our congressmen. #rotest against a war or a polluter. I do not wish to denigrate the activist" but virtually every problem we ever tackle turns out to be vastly more complicated than the placards and chants For" or that matter" the email campaignsG allow. In act" I would venture the surmise that no genuine social problem has ever been solved by a program o action. 'r even that no problem has ever been been solved at all. As we slowly change" we eventually transcend old problems" simply leaving them behind in order to ace new ones. 'r" you might say" old problems simply assume new orms. It scarcely needs adding that no hint o this undamental intractability o our most pressing social problems can be admitted in political discourse. *et the truth is that every ma3or social problem is too much or us. That-s why it-s a problem. .hat we always need is" unsurprisingly" e0actly what we have lost sight o . .e need a new view o things. So we seem to be caught in a vicious circle. I what is <out there< re lects our inner landscape Fas I have argued it doesG" how can we ever achieve a new view? The conviction that we needn-t try Fbecause technology is already saving usG or can-t succeed Fbecause what we have made" makes usG underlies many responses to technology. #erhaps more common is no response at all. A large ma3ority o !.S. citi6ens claims to believe that television contributes heavily to a prevailing social malaise" and yet the broad patterns o television use do not seem to change in hope ul ways. 2ew seem to ind a way to act meaning ully upon their misgivings 77 and this" too" certi ies the viciousness o the circle. 9ut I would rather think now o a dead end than a vicious circle. .here a circle leaves us treading round and round orever upon our own ootsteps 77 thinking we-re getting somewhere 77 a dead end snu s out all hope. There ore it o ers the only hope. It does so" that is" i we not only know we have reached a dead end" but also suffer it. The more clearly we reali6e 77 even as we ervently desire deliverance 77 that there is no way out" no program to save ourselves" no hope in any o our known resources 77 the more open we will be to an altogether di erent $eve$ o response. The more open we will be to what is not yet known within us. .e will look to a uture that can never arrive through a program" but only through the potential or inner sel 7trans ormation. Here alone we stand wholly apart rom our machines. ( r free#o& is 2orne 2y the .or!#, too 2or the last time" does technology have us in a stranglehold? (llul-s answer is instructive. I we have any chance o escape" he tells us" then above all things we must avoid the mistake o thinking that we are ree. I we launch out into the skies convinced that we have in inite resources and that in the last resort we are ree to choose our destiny" to choose between good and evil" to choose among the many possibilities that our thousands o technical gadgets make available" to invent an antidote to all that we have seen" to coloni6e space in order to make a resh beginning" etc.H i we imagine all the many possibilities that are open to us in our sovereign reedomH i we believe all that" then we are truly lost" or the only way to ind a narrow passage in this enormous world o deceptions Fe0pressing real orcesG as I have attempted to describe it is to have enough awareness and sel 7criticism to see that or a century we have been descending step by step the ladder o absolute necessity" o destiny" o ate. (llul would not have us en3oy our illusions. <Are we then shut up" blocked" and chained by the inevitability o the technical system which is making us march like obedient automatons ... ?< !nrelenting" he answers himsel with an apparent abandonment o hopeB <*es" we are radically determined. .e are caught up continuously in the system i we think even the least little bit that we can master the machinery" prepare or the year +AAA" and plan everything.< And yet" <not really"< he hedges in the end" or the very system that runs away with us is liable to provoke disasters" which in turn bring unpredictable possibilities or the uture. <&ot really"< i we know how little room there is to maneuver and there ore" not by one-s high position or by power" but always a ter the model o development rom a source and by the sole aptitude or astonishment" we pro it rom the e0istence o little cracks o reedom and install in them a trembling reedom which is not attributed to or mediated by machines or politics" but which is truly e ective" so that we may truly invent the new thing or which humanity is waiting. I+1I
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I cannot recommend (llul-s book too highly or anyone enchanted by the glossy allure o what he calls the technical system. And yet" i I were (llul" I would not have waited until the last paragraph o a our7hundred7page book to make my irst and only admission that a ew cracks o reedom may e0ist. A ter all" no matter how minuscule those cracks may be" all the 'nown universe lies within them. &othing 77 not even the determinations o the technical system 77 can be understood outside o them. 2or without reedom" there is physical cause and e ect" but no understanding and truth. The cause7and7e ect mechanism can never recogni6e and describe its own activity at the very highest level" and then trans orm itsel to an even higher level. 9ut that is e0actly what we do when we understandH all understanding is sel 7 understanding and sel 7trans ormation" another name or which is reedom. And in those same cracks o reedom our entire uture lies 77 the only uture possessed o human meaning" the only uture ree o the machine-s increasingly universal determinations" the only uture not eternally ro6en to the shape o our own past natures. Cracks cannot e0ist e0cept as issures breaking through a resistant material" and in this sense our technological achievements may turn out to have provided the necessary resistance against which we can establish a human uture. I " or e0ample" we are now learning to manipulate our own genetic inheritances" this technical ability must lead all but the hopelessly somnolent to a sense o desperationB <.hat sort o men should we make ourselves?< It is the same 5uestion we see re lected back at us rom the uncomprehending ace o the cleverest robot. There is no technological answer. How might we ind an answer? 'nly by looking within ourselves. &ot at what moves in lockstep with all the e0ternal machinery o our lives" but" to begin with" at the silent places. They are like the sanctuary we ind ourselves passing through or a ew moments upon waking in the morning. :ust be ore we come ully to ourselves 77 recollecting who we were" bowing beneath all the necessities o the preceding days 77 we may eel ourselves ever so brie ly on the threshold o new possibilities" remembering whispered hopes borne upon distant bree6es. .e know at such moments the reedom 77 yes" 3ust the tiniest cracks o reedom" or (llul was" a ter all" right 77 to awaken a different sel . <%ust I be ully determined by the crushing burdens o the past? 'r is something new being asked o me 77 some slight shi t in my own stance that" in the end" may trans orm all the surrounding machinery o my e0istence" like the stu o so many dreams?< %an is he who knows and trans orms himsel 77 and the world 77 rom within. He is the uture speaking. -eferences 1. &ot to be con used with the transmission o thou)hts. +. (llul" 1??AB 1>" 18=. 1. See chapter >" <Things That $un by Themselves.< 4. (llul" 1??AB +1=7+A. 8. %ilburn and %c,rail" 1??+B ;11 ;. 2rom a contribution to the <ipct7l< list Fipct7lNguvm.cc .georgetown.eduG" +1 September 1??4. =. Puoted in Howard" 1?>8B +4. >. See chapter 1>" <And the .ord 9ecame %echanical.< ?. A airly common" i lamentable" belie among cognitive scientists today has it that" given su icient comple0ity o the right sort in the answering system" the voice wou$d become the e0pression o a genuinely present" thinking consciousness. 1A. 2rom a contribution to the <techspirit7l< list Ftechspirit7lNwilliams.eduG" +; :uly 1??4. 11. .inner" 1?>;B ?87?;. 1+. (llul" 1??AB 111. 11. This is related to what :oseph .ei6enbaum called the <imperialism o instrumental reason.< The chapter called <Against the Imperialism o Instrumental $eason< in his Computer Power and Human Reason deals wonder ully with a number o the themes discussed here. 14. ,ibbs" 1??4.
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18. (llul" 1??AB 11;. 1;. #oppelbaum" 1??1B 1+=7+>. 1=. #oppelbaum" 1?;1B 1;=. 1>. Erueger" orward to Heim" 1??1. 1?. Euehlewind" 1?>4B =;H (llul" 1??AB +1=7+A. +A. .inner" 1?>;B 1. F.inner is responding to reportage in Tom .ol e-s The Ri)ht (tuff.G +1. 9ar ield" 1?;8aB =>" ?47?8. ++. Tom 9rown" :r." has written numerous books and nature guides. 2or autobiographical accounts" see 9rown" 1?>+H 9rown and .atkins" 1?=?. +1. (llul" 1??AB 41171+. (wen )arfield4 #he Evolution of Consciousness 'wen 9ar ield was born in Condon in 1>?>" produced his irst scholarly book FHistory in -n)$ish *ordsG in 1?+;" published the decisively important Poetic Diction in 1?+>" and" by his own testimony" has continued saying much the same thing ever since. It is certainly true that his work 77 ranging all the way to and beyond History! ,ui$t! and Ha+it F1?=?G 77 e0hibits a remarkable unity. 9ut it is a unity in ceaselessly stimulating diversity. %any will testi y that they have never seen him e0plore a topic e0cept by throwing an une0pectedly revealing light upon it. 9ar ield is identi ied" above all else" with his numerous characteri6ations o the evolution o consciousness. As a philologist" he pursued his 5uarry through the study o language 77 and particularly the historical study o meanin). I have already 5uoted his remark that <the ull meanings o words are lashing" iridescent shapes like lames 77 ever7 lickering vestiges o the slowly evolving consciousness beneath them.< History in -n)$ish *ords is one o the relatively ew attempts in our language to tell the history o peoples as revealed in these lickering word7shapes. Poetic Diction 77 and" to one degree or another" almost every subse5uent book 9ar ield wrote 77 teases out o language the underlying nature o the evolution o consciousness. 2ollowing the publication o his early works" 9ar ield was orced by personal circumstances to spend several decades as a practicing lawyer. &ever completely ceasing his scholarly pursuits" he resumed them with e0traordinary ruit ulness a ter his retirement in the 1?;As. In addition to writing such magisterial and liberating works as (avin) the Appearances and *or$ds Apart" he spent terms as visiting pro essor at various American institutions" including )rew !niversity" 9randeis !niversity" and Hamilton College. Two o his most accessible books FHistory! ,ui$t! and Ha+it and (pea'er4s 3eanin)G consist o lectures delivered during these appointments. 9ar ield was a member o the Inklings" an in ormal literary group that included C. S. Cewis" :. $. $. Tolkien" and Charles .illiams. .hile he never achieved 5uite the same popular success as these riends" many regard his work as the more deeply seminal. His in luence in scholarly circles has been all the more remarkable or its 5uiet" unobtrusive" yet pro oundly trans orming e ect. It is 9ar ield-s conviction that how we think is at least as important as what we think. This makes reading him more than a merely intellectual challenge. &obel laureate Saul 9ellow has writtenB .e are well supplied with interesting writers" but 'wen 9ar ield is not content to be merely interesting. His ambition is to set us ree. 2ree rom what? 2rom the prison we have made or ourselves by our ways o knowing" our limited and alse habits o thought" our <common sense.< These" he convincingly argues" have produced a <world o outsides with no insides to them"< a brittle sur ace world" an ob3ect world in which we ourselves are mere ob3ects. It is not only what we perceive but also what we ail to perceive that determines the 5uality o the world we live in" and what we have collectively chosen not to perceive is the ull reality o consciousness" the <inside< o everything that e0ists. I1I I cannot attempt to summari6e 9ar ield-s thought in even one o the many disciplines within which he has so productively e0ercised his iconoclasm. 9ut the ollowing" all7too7arbitrary" and by no means systematic collection o notes on a ew topics may help readers open an ac5uaintance with one o the century-s most incisive thinkers" while also directing them to the appropriate sources or a more thorough amiliarity. The ollowing selections present a mi0 o direct 5uotation" paraphrases" and my own" reely constructed summary statements. I ear that some degree o misrepresentation is inevitable" and here acknowledge that all such misrepresentation originates solely with me. I +I
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The (rigin an# 4eve!op&ent of Lang age Canguages" considered historically" bear within themselves a record o the evolution o human consciousness. FThis is a theme in virtually all o 9ar ield-s works. 9ut see especially Poetic Diction I1I" (pea'er4s 3eanin)" and (avin) the Appearances.G /////// The idea that the earliest languages were <born literal< 77 e0hibiting purely material meanings that were subse5uently e0tended to the immaterial through metaphor 77 is con used and sel 7contradictory. <.hat we call literalness is a late stage in a long7drawn7out historical process.< Anyone who tries to retain the supposed literalness o scientism <is either unaware o " or is deliberately ignoring" that real and igurative relation between man and his environment" out o which the words he is using were born and without which they could never have been born.< F<The %eaning o MCiteral"-< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG /////// The meanings o words constantly change. <All mental progress Fand" arising rom that" all material progressG is brought about in association with those very changes.< $adical progress re5uires challenging one-s undamental assumptions" and the most undamental assumptions o any age are implicit in the meanings o its words. Changes in meaning occur through discrepancies <between an individual speaker-s meaning and the current" or le0ical" meaning.< F(pea'er4s 3eanin)G /////// .ords can e0pand in meaning 77 so that they become more encompassing 77 or they can contract in meaning. Historically" the latter process has dominated" so that" or e0ample" a single word combining the meanings" <spirit"< <wind"< and <breath< in a uni ied manner subse5uently splits into three separate words" each with a more restricted meaning. &arrower meanings conduce to accuracy o communication" and result rom rational analysis. 9roader meanings support ullness o e0pression" and result rom imaginative synthesis. Communication deals with the how" and e0pression with the what. <#er ect communication would occur i all words had and retained identical meanings every time they were uttered and heard. 9ut it would occur at the e0pense o e0pression.< /////// The e0pansion o meaning through poetic synthesis re5uires a strong" inner activity. The contraction o meaning tends to occur passively" through the <inertia o habit.< F(pea'er4s 3eanin)G /////// .hen we investigate actual languages" we ind them becoming more and more igurative the urther back we look. .hat are now material meanings once had an immaterial component F<matter< itsel goes back to a Catin word or <mother<G" and what are now immaterial meanings once had a material component Fa <scruple< was once a sharp pebble 77 the kind" 9ar ield remarks" that gets into your shoe and worries youG. 'riginally" that is" all words 77 all meanings 77 were e0teriors e0pressing interiors in an indivisible unity. This unity was simply given by what 9ar ield calls < iguration"< and was not consciously constructed. 'ur own use o metaphor is made possible by the act that this unity has allen apartH it is no longer given" but must be grasped consciously 77 as it is whenever we apprehend an inner meaning shining through an e0terior <vehicle< and construct a metaphor to convey this insight. F Poetic DictionH (pea'er4s 3eanin)G /////// The historical passage rom igure to metaphor marks the dissolution o the given" innerIouter" immaterialImaterial unity. This unity was not a unity o language only" but o man-s participation in the world For" e5ually" the world-s participation in manG. .ith its dissolution" various antitheses arose or the irst timeB inner and outerH man and natureH words o immaterial meaning and words o material meaningH sub3ect and ob3ectH what a word meant and what it re erred toH and even sound and meaning. The rational" or analytic" principle operates to sharpen these antithesesH imaginative synthesis overcomes them. F Poetic DictionG /////// (arly language re lected a unity o perceiving and thinking. This was correlative to a lack o reedomB when the thought is given in the percept 77 when the thought comes rom without 77 one is not ree in one-s thinking. The world itsel lives upon the stage o one-s consciousness. In our own e0perience" perceiving and thinking are separate. #erceiving Fand not" incidentally" thinkingG is sub3ectively 5uali ied. *ou and I will see the same ob3ect di erently" depending upon our point o view. F.e correct or this through thinking.G 9ut i perceiving is sub3ectively 5uali ied" it must have been a rather di erent e0perience be ore the sub3ect and ob3ect ell apart 77 that is" when the sub3ect was not yet what it is today. As the history o language bears out" a kind o thinking was already present in this early e0perience o perceiving" and vice versa.
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2or Cocke-s picture o Adam at work on the synthetic manu acture o language we have to substitute 77 what? A kind o thinking which is at the same time perceiving 77 a picture7thinking" a igurative" or imaginative" consciousness" which we can only grasp today by true analogy with the imagery o our poets" and" to some e0tent" with our own dreams. FPoetic DictionH *or$ds ApartG /////// Canguage is a living and creative power" rom which man-s sub3ectivity was slowly e0tracted. The unction o language is to create that esthetic <distance< between man and the world <which is the very thing that constitutes his humanity. It is what rees him rom the world.< He is no longer a peninsula pushed out by natural orces. He is a separated island e0isting in a symbolic universe. #hysical reality recedes in proportion as his symbolic activity advances. He ob3ectivi6es more and more completely. 9ut the symbols were the product o his own inner activity in the irst place and they never really lose that character" however completely his very success in ob3ecti ying them may make him orget the act. 2orever a terwards" in dealing with things he is" as Cassirer puts it" <in a sense conversing with himsel .< F*or$ds ApartG /////// Canguages today possess only the aintest traces o the one7time unity o sound and meaning. Those willing to look <may ind" in the consonantal element in language" vestiges o those orces which brought into being the e0ternal structure o nature" including the body o manH and" in the original vowel7sounds" the e0pression o that inner li e o eeling and memory which constitutes his soul.< All this is consistent with the testimony o the ancients that the primordial .ord was responsible or creation. Still today" the invisible word is spoken with a physical )esture" even i that gesture has or the most part contracted into the small organs o speech. 'ne can at least imagine how the gestures o speech were once made with the whole body. This was be ore man had become <detached rom the rest o nature a ter the solid manner o today" when the body itsel was spoken even while it was speaking.< F(avin) the AppearancesG /////// <It was not man who made the myths but the myths" or the archetypal substance they reveal" which made man. .e shall have to come" I am sure" to think o the archetypal element in myth in terms o the wind that breathed through the harp7strings o individual brains and nerves and luids" rather as the blood still today pervades and sustains them.< F<The Harp and the Camera"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG Meaning an# 6&agination JThis section is abbreviated" since the same topic is touched on in chapter +1" <Can .e Transcend Computation?< See especially the sections" <The polar dynamic o meaning"< and <So" then ... what is meaning?<K /////// Imagination is the activity by which we apprehend the <outward orm as the image or symbol o an inner meaning.< F<The $ediscovery o %eaning"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG /////// <%ere perception 77 perception without imagination 77 is the sword thrust between spirit and matter.< It was what enabled )escartes to divide the world into thinking substance and e0tended substance. 9ut something more than mere perception occurs when we look at or listen to a ellow beingB whatever our philosophical predispositions" we in act read his body and voice as e6pressin) something immaterial. .e can" moreover" attend to nature in the same way" although such a reading o nature has been progressively eliminated rom our habits during the past ew hundred years. Strengthening the activity o imagination is the only way to heal the Cartesian sword7thrust. F<%atter" Imagination" and Spirit"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG /////// 2rom classical ,reece to the modern era there has been a broad transition in esthetics rom a passive psychology o inspiration Fmania" or divine madness" or possession by a god or museG to an active one o imagination. This can be seen as the transition rom a view o art which beholds it as the product o a mind" or spirit" not possessed by the individual" but rather possessing himH to a view o it as the product o something in a manner possessed by the individual though still not identical with his everyday personality 77 possessed by him" whether as his genius" or as his shaping spirit o imagination" or his unconscious mind" or whatever name we may pre er to give it. His own" but not himsel . F(pea'er4s 3eanin)G ///////

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The imagination has to do with a certain threshold. <.hen we think o an image or a symbol" we think o something that is impassably divided rom that of which it is an image 77 divided by the act that the ormer is phenomenal and the latter nonphenomenal.< And yet" there is an all7 important relation between the two. This relationship is one o e6pression" and our grasping o it imaginatively depends Funlike the older inspiration" which entailed a kind o possessionG upon the e0clusion o any <supernatural< crossing o the threshold. F<Imagination and Inspiration"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG Participation <#articipation is the e0tra7sensory relation between man and the phenomena.< /////// The world as immediately given to us is a mi0ture o sense perception and thought. .hile the two may not be separable in our e0perience" we can nevertheless distin)uish the two. .hen we do" we ind that the perceptual alone gives us no coherence" no unities" no <things< at all. .e could not even note a patch o red" or distinguish it rom a neighboring patch o green" without aid o the concepts given by thinking. In the absence o the conceptual" we would e0perience Fin .illiam :ames- wordsG only <a blooming" bu66ing con usion.< FPoetic DictionH (avin) the AppearancesG /////// The amiliar world 77 as opposed to the largely notional world o <particles< which the physicist aspires to describe 77 is the product o a perceptual given Fwhich is meaningless by itsel G and an activity of our own" which we might call < iguration.< 2iguration is a largely subconscious" imaginative activity through which we participate in producing F< iguring<G the phenomena o the amiliar world. FA simple analogy 77 but on$y an analogy 77 is ound in the way a rainbow is produced by the cooperation o sun" raindrops" and observer.G How we choose to regard the particles is one thing" but when we re er to the workaday world 77 the world o <things< 77 we must accept that our thinking is as much out there in the wor$d as in our heads. In actual act" we ind it nearly impossible to hold onto this truth. In our critical thinking as physicists or philosophers" we imagine ourselves set over against an ob3ective world consisting o particles" in which we do not participate at all. In contrast" the phenomenal" or amiliar" world is said to be riddled with our sub3ectivity. In our daily" uncritical thinking" on the other hand" we take or granted the solid" ob3ective reality o the amiliar world" assume an ob3ective" law ul mani estation o its 5ualities such as color" sound" and solidity" and even write natural scienti ic treatises about the history o its phenomena 77 all while ignoring the human consciousness that Fby our own" critical accountG determines these phenomena rom the inside in a continually changing way. I4I F*or$ds ApartH (avin) the AppearancesG /////// 'ne way iguration is distinguished rom our normal" intellectual thinking a+out things is that it synthesi6es unities at the level o the percept. 2iguration gives us the unanaly6ed <things< o our e0perience Fraising us above the <blooming" bu66ing con usion<G" and is not at all the same as synthesi6ing ideas about things. FPoetic DictionH (avin) the AppearancesG /////// 'ur language and meanings today put the idea o participation almost out o reach" whereas the reality o participation Fi not the ideaG was simply given in earlier eras. 2or e0ample" we cannot conceive o thoughts e0cept as things in our heads" <rather like cigarettes inside a cigarette bo0 called the brain.< 9y contrast" during the medieval era it would have been impossible to think o mental activity" or intelligence" as the product o a physical organ. Then" as now" the prevailing view was supported by the une0amined meanings o the only words with which one could talk about the matter. The 3vo! tion of Conscio sness .e ail today to distinguish properly between the history o ideas 77 <a dialectical or syllogistic process" the thoughts o one age arising discursively out o " challenging" and modi ying the thoughts and discoveries o the previous one< 77 and the evolution o consciousness. The comparatively sudden appearance" a ter millennia o static civili6ations o the oriental type" o the people or the impulse which eventually lowered in the cultures o the Aryan nations can hardly have been due to the impact o notion on notion. And the same is true o the abrupt emergence at a certain point in history o voci erously speculative thought among the ,reeks. Still more remarkable is the historically un athered impulse o the :ewish nation to set about eliminating participation by 5uite other methods than those o alpha7thinking Jthat is" o thinking a+out thingsK. Suddenly" and as it were without warning" we are con ronted by a ierce and warlike nation" or whom it is a paramount moral obligation to re rain rom the participatory heathen cults by which they were surrounded on all sidesH or whom moreover precisely that moral obligation is conceived as the very oundation o the race" the very marrow o its being. F(avin) the AppearancesG ///////

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An analogy may help. The changes in our ideas about" say" the economics o transport and commerce over the past several centuries have no doubt resulted in part rom the impact o idea upon idea. 9ut another cause o these changes lies in the altered nature o transport and commerce themselves. That is" the thing a+out which we orm ideas has evolved. F(pea'er4s 3eanin)G .hen it comes to human consciousness" we tend to orget the second possibility. *et" here in particular we should e0pect this possibility to predominate. <Ideas Jabout human consciousnessK have changed because human consciousness itsel 77 the elementary human e0perience about which the ideas are being ormed 77 the whole relation between man and nature or between conscious man and unconscious man 77 has itsel been in process o change.< F(pea'er4s 3eanin)H (avin) the AppearancesG Thus" the transition rom a psychology o inspiration to one o imagination Fsee aboveG re lects a changing relation between man and the sources o what we now call creativity. .hat once came rom without must now be taken hold o rom within. /////// The balance in iguration between what is given to us rom without and what we contribute rom within has changed radically over the course o history. 2or earliest man" nearly all the activity o iguration came rom without 77 which is another way o saying that the <inside< o things was e0perienced more <out there< than <in here.< F.hich also implies that <out there< was not 5uite so out there as it has become or us.G The perceiver was directly aware o the beings constituting this inside 77 an awareness we badly misinterpret i we take it as an erroneous theori6ing a+out things. Today" on the other hand" we contribute to the inside o things 77 we participate in them 77 rom within ourselves" and we are largely unaware o the contribution. 'ur primary" conscious mode o thinking is a thinking a+out things. F(avin) the AppearancesG <.hether or no archaic man saw nature awry" what he saw was not primarily determined by +e$iefs. 'n the other hand ... what we see is so determined.< This is the reverse o what is generally supposed. F(avin) the AppearancesG /////// The participation o primitive man Fwhat we might call <original< participationG was not theoretical at all" nor was it derived rom theoretical thought. It was given in immediate e0perience. That is" the conceptual links by which the participated phenomena were constituted were given to man already <embedded< in what he perceived. As noted above" his perceiving was at the same time a kind o thinkingH thinking occurred more in the world than in man. #erceiving and thinking had not yet split apart" as they have or us. %oreover" what was represented in the collective representations also di ered or primitive manB The essence o ori)ina$ participation is that there stands behind the phenomena" and on the other side of them from me" a represented which is o the same nature as me. .hether it is called <mana"< or by the names o many gods and demons" or ,od the 2ather" or the spirit world" it is o the same nature as the perceiving sel " inasmuch as it is not mechanical or accidental" but psychic and voluntary. F(avin) the AppearancesG /////// <2or the nineteenth7century antasy o early man irst ga6ing" with his mind ta+u$a rasa" at natural phenomena like ours" then seeking to e0plain them with thoughts like ours" and then by a process o in erence Mpeopling- them with the Maery phantoms- o mythology" there 3ust is not any single shred o evidence whatever.< FPoetic DictionH (avin) the AppearancesG /////// <Interior is anterior.< 9oth ontogenetically and phylogenetically" sub3ectivity is never something that was developed out o nothing at some point in space" but is a orm o consciousness that has contracted rom the periphery into individual centers. #hylogenetically" it becomes clear to us that the task o Homo sapiens" when he irst appeared as a physical orm on earth" was not to evolve a aculty o thought somehow out o nothing" but to trans orm the un ree wisdom" which he e0perienced through his organism as given meaning" into the ree sub3ectivity that is correlative only to active thought" to the individual activity o thinking. F(pea'er4s 3eanin)G /////// 'n the signi icance o memoryB :ust as" when a word is ormed or spoken" the original unity o the <inner< Jthat is" not yet spokenK word is polari6ed into a duality o outer and inner" that is" o sound and meaningH so" when man himsel was <uttered"< that is" created" the cosmic wisdom became polari6ed" in and through him" into the duality o appearance and intelligence" representation and consciousness. 9ut when creation has become polari6ed into consciousness on the one side and phenomena" or appearances" on the other" memory is made possible" and begins to play an all7important part in the process o evolution. 2or by means o his memory man makes the outward appearances an inward e0perience. He ac5uires his sel 7consciousness rom them. .hen I e0perience the phenomena in memory" I make them <mine"< not now by virtue o any original participation" but by my own inner activity. F(avin) the AppearancesG ///////
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The possibility o a new kind o participation 77 what we might call fina$ participation 77 was glimpsed by the $omantics when they concluded that <we must no longer look or the nature7spirits 77 or the ,oddess &atura 77 on the arther side o the appearancesH we must look or them within ourse$ves.< In Coleridge-s wordsB *e receive +ut what we )ive A And in our $ife a$one does Nature $ive2 'riginal participation < ires the heart rom a source outside itsel H the images enliven the heart.< In inal participation" <it is or the heart to enliven the images.< F(avin) the AppearancesG /////// .e can understand the relation between inal and original participation only when <we admit that" in the course o the earth-s history" something like a )ivine .ord has been gradually clothing itsel with the humanity it irst gradually created 77 so that what was irst spoken by ,od may eventually be respoken by man.< F(avin) the AppearancesH *or$ds ApartG Science an# the 5 t re %odern science began with the conscious e0clusion o so7called <occult< properties 77 those 5ualities imperceptible to the physical senses. Subse5uently" the remaining" physically observable 5ualities were divided into two groups 77 primary and secondary 77 depending on whether they were elt to reside in the world or in man. (ventually" it turned out that all 5ualities were <sub3ective"< and the hardest sciences there ore devoted themselves solely to the 5uantitative" measurable aspects o the world. The phenomena" in their 5ualitative ullness" were ignored as sub3ective. 9e ore the Scienti ic $evolution" 5ualities were elt to reside +oth in nature and in man. %an" as a microcosm" was a re lection o the macrocosm. The dispositional 5ualities o the planets were also dispositional 5ualities o man. The our elements o nature were not e0clusively ob3ective" and the our humors o man were not e0clusively sub3ective. It is odd" then" to call the pre7Copernican world <anthropocentric.< .e have 3ust been seeing how the 5ualities ormerly treated as inherent in nature have" as ar as any scienti ic theory is concerned" disappeared rom it" and how they have reappeared on the hither side o the line between sub3ect and ob3ect" within the e0periencing human psycheH how we conceive ourselves as <pro3ecting< 5ualities onto nature rather than receiving them rom her. Is that any $ess anthropocentric than the Aristotelian world7picture? I would have thought it was more so. F<Science and Puality"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG /////// The 5ualities o things" <which we classi y as sub3ective" but which look so very much as i they actually belong to nature"< are in act <the inwardness o nature as well as o ourselves.< &ot that we consciously devise these 5ualitiesH our participation in them is largely unconscious. F<Science and Puality"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG /////// <.hat will chie ly be remembered about the scienti ic revolution will be the way in which it scoured the appearances clean o the last traces o spirit" reeing us from original" and for inal" participation .... The other name or original participation" in all its long7hidden" in all its diluted orms" in science" in art and in religion" is" a ter all 77 paganism.< F(avin) the AppearancesG /////// .hen man irst begins thinking a+out the phenomena" he still largely participates in them. This thinking" there ore" becomes entangled in error and con usion" or it is an attempt to gain an ob3ective stance be ore one has gotten ree o the web o meaning by which one is bound to things. 'ver time" however" this kind o thinking is a primary means by which the disentanglement 77 the reedom rom things 77 is achieved. F(avin) the AppearancesG ( ective manipulation o things F rom surgery to computationG is one o the gi ts o science" as is a habit o disciplined and accurate thinking. So also is the sel less and attentive devotion to nature that only became possible with our separation rom nature. /////// 'n the other hand" our very love o natural phenomena < or their own sake< will be enough to prevent us rom hastily turning a blind eye on any new light which can be shed" rom any direction whatsoever" on their true nature. Above all will this be the case" i we eel them to be in danger. And i the appearances are" as I have sought to establish" correlative to human consciousness and i human consciousness does not remain unchanged but evolves" then the uture o the appearances" that is" o nature hersel " must indeed depend on the direction which that evolution takes. F(avin) the AppearancesG ///////
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The notion o evolution" or development" has become central to many o the sciences 77 and rightly so. 9ut this idea remains badly distorted by the peculiar conditions o its birth. The phenomena" or collective representations" during the middle o the nineteenth century Fwhen )arwin wroteG were o+9ects. <To a degree which has never been surpassed be ore or since"< man did not consciously participate in these phenomena. At that time" matter and orce were enough .... I the particles kept growing smaller and smaller" there would always be bigger and better glasses to see them through. The collapse o the mechanical model was not yet in sight" nor had any o those other actors which have since contributed to the passing o the dead7centre o <literalness< 77 idealist philosophies" genetic psychology" psychoanalysis 77 as yet begun to take e ect. Conse5uently there was as yet no dawning apprehension that the phenomena o the amiliar world may be <representations< in the inal sense o being the mental construct o the observer. Citeralness reigned supreme.... 2or the generality o men" participation was deadH the only link with the phenomena was through the sensesH and they could no longer conceive o any manner in which either growth itsel or the metamorphoses o individual and special growth" could be determined rom within. The appearances were idols. They had no <within.< There ore the evolution which had produced them could only be conceived mechanomorphically as a series o impacts o idols on other idols. F(avin) the AppearancesG /////// All real change is trans ormation. 2or trans ormation to occur" there must be an interior that persists as well as an e0terior that is trans ormed. 'therwise" one would have only bare substitution. There would be nothing undergoing the trans ormation. &ineteenth7 century atomism 77 which continues to dominate the popular imagination Fand even the prosaic imagination o most scientistsG 77 was in this way essentially a description o substitutions. It there ore could not grasp evolution as a trans ormative process. 9ut to speak o an interior that persists is to speak as much o +ein)s as o things. That" perhaps" accounts or the popularity o impersonal terms like <pattern< and <gestalt.< They shield us rom what we pre er not to recogni6e. <.e glimpse a countenance" and we say hurriedlyB M*es" that is indeed a ace" but it is the ace o nobody.-< FBnancestra$ .oiceG /////// The move rom a participated world to the nonparticipated world o nineteenth7century science carried man rom an organic relation to the cosmos to a purely spatial" mathematical relation. The view o man as a microcosm placed at the center o the macrocosm Fmuch as the heart was the center 77 but certainly not the mathematical center 77 o manG gave way to an arbitrary coordinate system" with the eye i0ed at the origin. That per ect instrument o perspective" the camera" <looks always at and never into what it sees. I suspect that %edusa did very much the same.< F<The Harp and the Camera"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysH (avin) the AppearancesG /////// The classical physicist still viewed trans ormation in nature as essentially 5ualitative" and he sought the unchanging entities underlying the observed trans ormations. 9ut this enterprise was called into 5uestion by later developments" including the ormulation o the ield concept" which <meant abandoning the old assumption that the laws governing large7scale phenomena are to be deduced rom those governing matter at the microscopic level. JIt wasK at least as true to say that the behavior o the particle was determined by the ield as it was to say that the nature o the ield was determined by the behaviors o particles.< The seemingly unavoidable insertion o a principle o randomness 77 unlaw ulness 77 at the submicroscopic level was another 3olt. F Bnancestra$ .oiceG Such developments lead to 5uestions about the role o models in physics. %ust we either be content with unsullied mathematics" or else resort to <crude"< constructional models Fsuch as pictures o the atom as miniature solar systemsG? A middle way may be indicated by what is known o the working o the imagination. In particular" three eatures widely recogni6ed as belonging to the imagination may prove relevant to the physicistB Imagination directly apprehends the whole as <contained< in the part" or as in some mode identical with it. Imagination ... apprehends spatial orm" and relations in space" as <e0pressive< o nonspatial orm and nonspatial relations. 'perating ... anteriorly to the kind o perception and thought which have become normal or ully conscious modern man" JimaginationK unctions at a level where observed and observer" mind and ob3ect" are no longer 77 or are not yet 77 spatially divided rom one anotherH so that the mind" as it were" becomes the ob3ect or the ob3ect becomes the mind. FBnancestra$ .oiceG !n ortunately" however" those who pursue physics and those who have investigated imagination typically have little to do with each other. /////// The radical" Cartesian split between mind and matter is more commonly complained o than escaped. A true escape would re5uire that I become a di erent kind o human being. To renounce the heterogeneity o observed rom observer involves" i it is taken seriously" abandoning the whole <onlooker< stance" upon which both the pursuit o science and modern language7use in general are basedH it means advancing to awareness o another
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relation altogether between mind and matter. I we had actually made the advance" we should have become naturally" un orcedly" and unremittingly aware that the mind cannot re er to a natural ob3ect without at the same time re erring to its own activity. And this in turn would re5uire an e5ually un orced awareness not only that scienti ic discovery is always a discovery about language" but also that it is always a discovery about the sel which uses language. F<Canguage and )iscovery"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG /////// Scientists are wont to boast o the ob3ectivity o their discipline. There is good reason or this" but <is there any need to make 5uite such a song and dance about it?< 'b3ectivity should pose no great di iculty when we-re dealing with matters rom which we eel wholly disconnected personally. <To put it rudely" any reasonably honest ool can be ob3ective about ob3ects.< It must be a di erent matter altogether" should we be called on to attend" not alone to matter" but to spiritH when a man would have to practice distinguishing what in himsel comes solely rom his private personality 77 memories" or instance" and all the horseplay o the 2reudian subconscious 77 rom what comes also rom elsewhere. Then indeed ob3ectivity is not something that was handed us on a plate once and or all by )escartes" but something that would really have to be achieved" and which must re5uire or its achievement" not only e0ceptional mental concentration but other e orts and 5ualities" including moral ones" as well. F<Canguage and )iscovery"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysG /////// The line between unconscious iguration Fby which <things< are madeG and conscious thinking a+out things is not i0ed and inviolate. &ot only" in our thinking about things" do we progressively bring their constitutive thinking to consciousness" but also" our thinking about things sinks down" over time" into our unconscious manner o e0periencing those things 77 that is" into our iguration. I may irst have to learn that the sound I hear is a thrush singingH but" eventually" I will no longer hear a sound and then conclude that a thrush is singing" but rather will simply <hear a thrush singing.< How I think has worked down into how I perceive. F Poetic DictionH (avin) the AppearancesG /////// A true science would lead us toward a more conscious iguration" whereby we would take responsibility or the world from the inside. The <particles< are abstract constructs illing in where we have not yet succeeded" via iguration" in producing phenomena. That is" the realm about which we theori6e with talk o particles and such is the collective unconscious" and is contiguous" so to speak" with that other part o the collective unconscious rom which the amiliar world o collective representations arises through iguration. 9ut we have a choice. Instead o raising the unconscious to consciousness through an enhanced iguration" we can continue reducing consciousness 77 as mani ested in the phenomena 77 to unconsciousness. As I noted above Fn. 4G" <by means o abstraction" we convert the world into the merely notional" or nonphenomenal< 77 that is" into <particles.< So ar at all events as the macroscopic universe is concerned" the world itsel on the one hand and the way we perceive and think it on the other hand are inseparable. It must ollow rom that that" i enough people go on long enough perceiving and thinking about the world as mechanism only" the macroscopic world will eventually +ecome mechanism only. F<Science and Puality"< in The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssaysH (avin) the AppearancesG /////// <To be a+$e to e0perience the representations as idols" and then to be able also to per orm the act o iguration consciously" so as to e0perience them as participatedH that is imagination.< Speaking through a character in his ictionali6ed treatise" Bnancestra$ .oice" 9ar ield summari6es the development o languageB Canguage was" or him" an outstanding e0ample o the past surviving" trans ormed" in the present .... *ou had to see the origin o language as the sel 7gathering o mind within an already mind7 soaked world. It was the product o <nature< in the sense that the meanings o words" i you approached them historically" could all 77 or as nearly all as made no di erence 77 be shown to be involved with natural phenomena. %oreover" inter usion o the sensuous FsoundG with the immaterial FmeaningG was still" even today" its whole point. *et it was certainly not" in its earlier stages" the product o individua$ mindsH or it was obviously already there at a stage o evolution when individual minds were not yet. He had no doubt o its pointing back to a state o a airs when men and nature were one in a way that had long since ceased. (ven now" even in our own time" there was the mysterious <genius o language< which many philologists had detected as something that worked independently o any conscious choices. 'n the other hand" you could see that" as time went on" language did come to owe more and more to the working o individual minds. However you looked at it" you could not get away rom the act that every time a man spoke or wrote there was this intricate inter usion o past and present 77 o the past trans ormed" as meaning" with the present impulse behind his act o utterance. /////// <The appearances will be Msaved- only i " as men approach nearer and nearer to conscious iguration and reali6e that it is something which may be a ected by their choices" the inal participation which is thus being thrust upon them is e0ercised with the pro oundest sense o responsibility" with the deepest thank ulness and piety towards the world as it was originally given to them in original
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participation" and with a ull understanding o the momentous process o history" as it brings about the emergence o the one rom the other.< F(avin) the AppearancesG -eferences 1. 2rom dust 3acket o 9ar ield" 1?=?. +. Puotations rom The Rediscovery of 3eanin) and Other -ssays" (pea'er4s 3eanin)" Poetic Diction" *or$ds Apart" (avin) the Appearances" and Bnancestra$ .oice used by permission o .esleyan !niversity #ress. 1. I try to indicate one or two books in which each idea receives considerable treatment. The irst publication listed a ter 5uoted material is the source o the 5uotation. In a ew cases" where the given idea thoroughly pervades all o 9ar ield-s work" I o er no citation at all. !navoidably" given the unity o 9ar ield-s work" there is something slightly arbitrary about many o the citations that are provided. 4. .hat enables us to switch between these two contradictory stances without acute discom ort is our long training in seeing the amiliar world through a veil 77 a mathematical grid o abstraction. 9y means o abstraction" we convert the world into the merely notional" or nonphenomenal. In act" the particles can be seen as the endpoint o this process. As a result" the 5ualities o things have by now become dim enough in our e0perience to lead philosophers to 5uestion whether they have any sort o reality at all. !rom ,irtual to Real Thanks to the computer" we are today lirting with certain ideas that would have been anathema to an earlier scienti ic and technological mindsetB The &et and its <in ormation spaces< are increasingly conceived as a kind o global" nurturing" immaterial sea o wisdom" rom which we all may reely draw" and to which we contribute our own uni5ue achievements. .e are now learning to regard even our own identities in terms o <)&A databases< 77 e0tensions o the larger in ormation space. And" as these databases become digiti6ed and manipulable" the hope is that I may eventually alter my personal genetic database at will" selecting my physiological destiny by multiple choice rom the in ormational surround. 'n the ace o it" this matri0 o in ormational essences carries us a long way rom the brute" i0ed stu o nineteenth7century materialism" shaped solely by the outward impact o mechanism upon mechanism. %ateriality has been caught up" so to speak" within a <superior< realm o in ormation" and made to serve it. .hen we construct virtual realities" we do so < rom the inside.< .e not only e0perience the virtual world" but we create it" sustain it" and alter it Fboth as programmers and as <inhabitants<G. .e participate in its phenomena. 'ne aspect o this participation is a strong connection between word and thing. The word takes on substance. ,iven the right programming environment" I can say" <let the world be blue"< and it is so. It is precisely such participation" however" that the strict cleavage between sub3ect and ob3ect was supposed to remove rom our scienti ic understanding o the world. The scienti ic method was to yield an ob3ective reality uncontaminated by the investigator-s sub3ectivity. The discipline o arti icial intelligence has reed the <mind< rom the body. The bit patterns constituting the computer-s intelligence can be trans erred to a second computer without moving any hardware. Same mind" it seems" but di erent body. Also" there is much talk o the intelligent agents we will soon commission to go gibbering through the vast" logical spaces o the &et" bound to no single machine" and surviving rom one litting incarnation to the ne0t as restless shades with an insatiable thirst or in ormation. And yet" the strictest materialism once held that all mentality was 77 i not nothing 77 pure and simple physicality" precisely located in space. Intelligence 77 the kind with which we invest our arti acts 77 is rapidly evolving. This decade-s machines are ar more sophisticated" more knowing" more subtly clever than last decade-s" and the ne0t decade-s will be even more so. It is not only a matter o degree. The undamental principles by which these intelligences operate are also evolving" as our programming strategies change. &or are these developments restricted in any absolute way by limitations o hardware. The computational mind evolves independently. 9ut not so long ago" the evolution o the mind-s most basic structures was conceived by biologists to be entirely conse5uent upon evolution o the underlying substrate. The brain is what sustained evolution" not some epiphenomenal mind.

Computer technology" in summary" appears to suggest certain redirections away rom older scienti ic stancesB a de/materia$i1ation" with in ormation replacing matter as the more basic constructH a participation that blurs the distinction between sub3ect and ob3ectH a new metaphysics that resists the theoretical assimilation o mind to bodyH and a nonmaterial evo$ution of inte$$i)ence" independent o matter. It turns out" as we will see" that these ideas represent a strengthening o the amiliar habit o abstraction upon which science has long been based. 'r" at least" that is what the common statement o the ideas makes o them. 9ut another way to think about these things has been on o er since well be ore the computer came along. 1ncient princip!es, or ne.A
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'ne way or me to introduce the work o 'wen 9ar ield 77 admittedly an eccentric way 77 would be to ask what happens i we take these <new truths< in their most radical and disturbing sense. 2or then we will ind ourselves driven to the work begun by 9ar ield early in this century. It is a remarkable act that he developed a closely corresponding set o insights" and brought to bear upon them a historical awareness and a richness o discrimination not yet evident in discussions o electronic technology. ' course" 9ar ield had one advantage over usB since computers did not e0ist when he began his work" he was not driven by any illusion that they represented some bright" new paradigm" with the aid o which we would inally li t ourselves rom the supposed muck o our earthly origins. He saw clearly enough that the computational model 77 whether o mind or world 77 was rather the inal" li eless crystalli6ation o a paradigm that was already taking orm within the murky penumbra o the Scienti ic $evolution-s irst" promising light. .hen" in the 1?+As" he began his research" he did so not by looking orward to the computer" but rather by taking in the distant human past. The truths he discerned were gleaned rom the ancients" yet he recogni6ed in these truths a double signi icance" or they must come alive again in a new way i our uture is to be preserved. And what are these ancient truths upon which the uture hangs? Here" in brie " I will restate the our" closely meshed assertions given above as I imagine they might emerge rom an encounter with 9ar ield-s penB .e 77 and the world 77 are descended rom something like a sea o pure meaning 77 o spirit and light 77 and we still bear our origin within ourselves. It would be truer to say that human beings were irst incarnated upon the resonant wings o language 77 as <standing waves"< so to speak" within the low o divine speech 77 than that language originated with the human being. FAs to the material" <in ormation7bearing< gene" it is a metaphor 77 a ocused yet veiled image within which we may hope to read a ew o the wordlike gestures raying in rom the surrounding spiritual matri0.G .e participate in the world-s phenomena rom the inside. 2or e0ample Fas Coleridge observedG" what I e0perience within mysel as an idea" and within nature as a law" are not two di erent things" but the same inner reality encountered rom two sides. The creative word summoned rom the pro oundest depths o man-s being is one with the word that sustains nature. &ow largely lost rom view" this unity Falong with the responsibility it impliesG is in danger o becoming irretrievably destructive. Treating the world as mere ob3ect" we are on the way toward making it into mere ob3ect in its own" most essential nature. .hile our human consciousness is mediated by the brain" consciousness as such is the product neither o matter nor o its organi6ation. $ather" consciousness precedes and prepares the way or its own embodiment in material organs. The thinking that occurs upon the stage o our consciousness takes place as much <out there< as within the cranium. Consciousness is the enduring prere5uisite rom which all physical reality is" as it were" coagulated. Puite apart rom the history o ideas" there has been an underlying evolution o consciousness. 2rom one side" this can be seen as a progressive contraction o consciousness out o the world and into our individual centers" which in turn marks a transition rom sub3ect7ob3ect unity to our own sub3ect7ob3ect antithesis. The present necessity is to learn again to participate consciously in the world" but without giving up our hard7won sel 7consciousness and our capacity or detached" ob3ective thinking. That is" we may no longer merely su er our participation as the ancients didH we must reely speak the creative word out o ourselves" in ull and disciplined consciousness. 'nly so can we renew the world rom within.

1 changing of the g ar#A I you compare these two groups o statements closely" you may ind yoursel perple0ed. 'n the one hand" the paired statements a$most say the same thing. 9ut on the other hand" it appears that 9ar ield inhabits a world altogether oreign to conventional wisdom about computers and the &et 77 so much so that his remarks bear the taint o taboo. The computer engineer may speak o intelligent so tware on a disk" but she is not likely to tolerate thoughts o an intelligence brooding over the primeval oo6e rom which human li e is thought to have arisen 77 much less any idea that the oo6e itsel congealed rom some sort o consciousness or spirit. I say only <not likely"< or it is no longer the near impossibility o a ew years back. The taboos do show signs o weakening" even as the materialistic paradigm continues its stunning trans ormation toward apparent immateriality. The younger generation today is not so inclined to distinguish arti icially between the visible and the invisible" the material and the immaterial" as we once were. I you doubt the change" 3ust ask those stolid guardians o scienti ic tradition who despair over so much in our well7educated society todayB the many lourishing <disciplines< beyond the pale" such as astrology" psychic counseling" and channelingH the rediscovery and celebration o indigenous spiritualityH and the remarkable spread o the most diverse orms o <&ew Age< science and religion. The various sillinesses to be ound among these cultural phenomena are hardly the main point 77 any more than the orgotten sillinesses o the $enaissance were its main point. The signi icance in both cases lies rather at a deeper level where the undamental capacities and yearnings o human consciousness take shape. As to the travesties" should we not lay them at the door o those same stolid guardians" who have or so long arrogated to themselves all <legitimate< scienti ic energies" denying even the lackluster crumbs to their spiritually hungry brethren? However" I have also 3ust now suggested that certain o our distinctive thoughts about computers can be read in either o two dramatically divergent ways. That is" computers have led us onto the kni e edge" and as our current vertigo already indicates" we
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cannot long avoid committing ourselves to one side or the other. .e will either choose or ourselves" or else receive an unceremonious shove rom the gathering technological nisus. 1 B estion of a2straction .hen we look at the two sets o statements given above 77 one arising rom high technology and the other rom 9ar ield-s work 77 a crucial di erence is immediately apparent. .here 9ar ield speaks o the everyday" amiliar world" we children o technology appeal instead to virtual reality and to that apotheosis o distributed in ormation we like to call <cyberspace.< And so" or us" An old7style materiality gives way" not to a rediscovery o the spirit F rom which all meaning once descendedG" but to a ield o measurable" manipulable in ormation F rom which no meaning can ariseG. .e begin to e0perience our creative participation in virtual worlds" but this participation turns out to be a matter" not o head" heart" and will 77 nor even o head alone 77 but solely o the calculator7in7the7head Falthough the calculation is admittedly superb" down to the least pi0elG. .e pro)ram these worlds" which conse5uently lack all inner connection to the sustaining &ature that bore us. .e devise evolving orms o intelligence e0isting independently o any material substrate" but ar rom bearing creative powers and intentions or the earth-s renewal" these empty orms are the last" dead echoes o a human intelligence now content to live as its own shadow" impressed upon highly articulated" but uncomprehending mechanisms. The computer" it appears" can remind us o orgotten truths 77 truths that were perhaps bound to reemerge in one orm or another with the e0haustion o a one7sided scienti ic 5uest. 9ut at the same time" by encouraging us to translate those truths into a distant re lection o themselves" the computer also shields us rom their direct orce. The technological vision appears almost as i an entire body o wisdom" deriving rom all ancient peoples o the earth and bearing deep signi icance or our uture" had been <li ted< and applied in attenuated orm to an arti icial world sa ely insulated rom the real thing. %oreover" the nature o our shield against orgotten truths is not hard to recogni6e. It is woven o abstractions. .e have seen such a pattern already in classical scienceB using a mathematical sieve" a <material< residue was si ted rom the spiritually rich world. 9ut this residue turned out to have no substance" no weight" o the sort we once imagined. In act" it inally reduced to the abstract mesh o the sieve itsel 77 which is hardly surprising. As .illiam Temple once remarked" <i you attend to things only so ar as they are measurable" you will end with only measurements be ore your attention.< And so today the physicist plays in a realm o number" e5uation" and probability" disavowing all attempts to assign meaning to his constructs. .hat happens i we bring the physicist-s proclivities to the sciences o man? The same abstraction that si ted matter rom spirit now distills 5uantitative in ormation rom 5ualitative meaning with technocratic e iciencyH and then it proceeds to articulate the logical structures o a computational <mind.< 2reed rom the necessity o <instantiation< in any particular material" these in ormational and logical structures gain a kind o notional immortality" a release rom the encumbering weight o gross matter. 9ut here is the enticing danger. Today many people are inclined to welcome any possible <escape< rom the dead weight o several centuries- materialistic debris. .ith good 3usti ication. And yet" the deliverance they are now being o ered is in reality the 5uintessential product 77 the ultimate e0tension 77 o that same materialistic undertaking that has till now so e ectively constrained their spirits. It is" a ter all" now evident enough that the essence o scienti ic materialism never did lay in a de ense o what we still like to think o as <solid matter< over against whatever sort o immateriality we cared to imagine. 2or materialism is inally located in those habits o abstraction that gave us dark" eatureless matter in the irst placeH and i this originally com orting matter o science has been ound to dissolve more and more into abstract ields and statistical distributions" a strikingly similar dissolution has reduced the living spirits o old to the vague" in ormational7spiritual stu o the high7tech mystic. .hoever we are" we de ine ourselves today by our abstractions. The real divide" then" occurs not between materiality and immateriality" but rather between abstraction and meaning 77 between" on the one hand" the abstraction that gave us <physical< and <mental< stu in Cartesian opposition" and" on the other hand" the meaning through which we can rediscover the spirit7saturated world" and ourselves in it. (ventually" one may e0pect" the abstracted mind will implode rom its own weightlessness. 2or we must inally askB abstraction rom what5 I there is no what 77 no < amiliar world< worth knowing" possessed o substantial reality in its own right 77 how shall we abstract rom it? %oethean science I abstraction is the instrument by which we produce the in ormational content o cyberspace" imagination is the activity by which we discover meaning in the world" or with the imagination we apprehend <the outward orm as the image or symbol o an inner meaning.< I1I Imagination is already employed in the scienti ic method. 9ut what we need now" according to 9ar ield" is the use o imagination" not only in devising hypotheses" but <in the very act o observation.< This would lead us beyond some vague sense o meaning in nature as a whole. It would enable us to read the <book< o nature in such a way that <the meaning o the whole is articulated rom the meaning o each part 77 chapters rom sentences and sentences rom words 77 and stands be ore us in clear" sharp outlines< Fp. +AG.
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Such a method may be hard or us to conceive" but 9ar ield points out that Coleridge and the $omantics took some irst" tentative steps in this direction. %oreover" ,oethe actually e0ercised the method in making some pro ound discoveries 77 although they have largely been overlooked in the accelerating rush o science toward manipulative e ectiveness. ,oethe" as 9ar ield puts it" perceived that <nature has an Minside- which cannot be weighed and measured 77 or even Fwithout trainingG observed 77 namely" the creative thoughts which underlie phenomenal mani estation< Fp. +AG. ,oethe-s scienti ic work included a study o light and color" which" until recently" drew less attention rom scientists than rom artistsH investigations o the human skeletonH and the discovery o the principle o metamorphosis o plants" by which a single < orm< repeatedly e0presses itsel through a series o e0panding and contracting trans ormations in lea " caly0" petal" reproductive organs" ruit" and" inally" in the e0tremely contracted seed. 9ar ield characteri6es ,oethe-s achievement this wayB 9y ordinary inductive science the uni ying idea" or law" behind groups o related phenomena is treated as a generali6ation rom particularsB it is an abstract notion ... and it must be e0pressible in terms o measurable 5uantities. 2or ,oethean science" on the other hand" this uni ying idea is an ob3ective reality" accessible to direct observation. In addition to measuring 5uantities" the scientist must train himsel to perceive 5ualities. This he can do 77 as ,oethe did when he saw the various parts o the plant as <metamorphoses< o the lea 77 only by so sinking himsel in contemplation o the outward orm that his imagination penetrates to the activity which is producing it. Fp. +1G In ormation or meaningH abstraction or imagination? .e choose between reducing nature-s ullness to the abstract generali6ations o mathematical law" or penetrating to the inner activity that produces the phenomenon. That activity can no more be e0pressed as in ormation than your and my meaning ul activity. ,oethe-s recognition o the principle o metamorphosis could hardly have arisen rom any sort o generali6ation ollowing upon the logical analysis o already de ined structures. He had to wrestle through to a 5ualitative seeing that re5uired years o disciplined observation be ore he could discern the crucial orms. He held that anyone who perceived these creative orms could" in thought" derive every possi+$e plant" including those that did not yet e0ist. I+I I re erred above 77 perhaps much too bree6ily 77 to the gene as <a metaphor" a ocused yet veiled image within which we may hope to read a ew o the wordlike gestures raying in rom the surrounding spiritual matri0.< There is no denying that these words are more easily spoken than entered into. 9ut it is 9ar ield-s message that we must at least become aware o the two contrary directions our investigations may take. .ith respect to the gene" we may" on the one hand" elect to analy6e the outer body o the metaphor" bringing to bear upon it our admirably detached" but perceptually emptied" 5uantitative observation 77 and so we may gain our desired powers o manipulation. 9ut this brute manipulation will stand unrelated to the meaning o the metaphor" or that must be read" not measured or calculated. I " on the other hand" we could begin to see the developing human being rather as ,oethe saw the plant 77 and I" or one" do not wish to minimi6e the challenge in this 77 perhaps we would ind ourselves able to move beyond the seemingly insoluble ethical 5uandaries posed by genetic manipulation in particular and biotechnology in general. .hat we would then con ront is the concrete reality o personhood and destiny" not the abstract" in ormational <programming< o a ew strands o )&A. 'nly then would we know" rom the inside" the proper laws constraining every human trans ormation.

Can the appearances 2e save#A .e have been abandoning the world in two directions. 'n one side" pure science leads us away rom nature toward a notional" almost metaphysical realm o particles. Here we look or the real basis and the inal e0planation o everything in nature. Such a stance drains the sense o present rea$ity rom all ordinary e0perience. I particles are the real stu " precisely characteri6able" why bother overmuch with the pro ligate" undisciplined cornucopia that presents itsel immediately to our senses? Isn-t everything we know most immediately 77 prior to applying our grid o abstraction 77 <merely sub3ective<? 'n the other side" we are now abandoning the world by constructing arti icial alternatives to ordinary e0perience" christening them <virtual.< I normal e0perience is only sub3ective anyway" there is no reason not to create worlds o sensation more to our liking. 'ne can even imagine that" 3ust so ar as we learn to contro$ these sensations" we will begin to view the virtual environment as more ob3ectively real than any other world" or we have long considered our e0perience valid 3ust so ar as it e0presses our powers o control. In any case" the phenomenal world is clearly being neglected 77 i not positively undermined 77 rom two sides. This raises the 5uestion implied in the title o 9ar ield-s book" (avin) the Appearances2 I1I Trans erring this 5uestion to our present conte0tB in addition to the e ective control we gain by constructing a notional world o particles" and in addition to our capacity or arbitrary e0pression through the technology o virtual reality" do we still need to take deep" creative hold o the <middle world< 77 the amiliar world 77 the world that nursed our ancestors and stirred them to unprecedented artistic achievements" the world rom which we
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abstract the particles" and the world we merely imitate with our virtual realities? Can we consciously take hold o this amiliar world from the inside" working with it artistically as stewards o the uture? -artici ation 9ar ield-s answer" given in (avin) the Appearances" is so undamental that I can scarcely even gesture toward it here. This is not surprising" given that he asks us to reconceive both the gesturing human being and the things we can gesture toward 77 and even more" to become in the process different gesturers" beholding a different sort o thing. &evertheless" I must at least cite one o his starting points" along with a ew mileposts" none o which" un ortunately" can be set in conte0t here. 9ar ield begins" 5uite simply" with what is nearly undisputedB 'n almost any received theory o perception the amiliar world 77 that is" the world which is apprehended" not through instruments and in erence" but simply 77 is or the most part dependent upon the percipient. Fp. +1G I the hard sciences have retreated into 5uantitative analysis" it is precisely because the phenomenal world 77 the 5ualitative world handed to us by direct awareness 77 is elt to be <contaminated< by the consciousness o the sub3ect. The world o cold and hot things" green and blue things" loud and 5uiet thingsH the world o amiliar aces" strange places" clouds" sky" and seasH the world about which each o us thinks whenever we are not critically applying our physics lessons 77 that world cannot Fwe are toldG be described rigorously. .e are advised not even to tryH our irst lessons in science teach us to seek &uantities in the phenomena. .e have already heard one o 9ar ield-s responsesB the phenomenal world can be described rigorously 77 it can be read as a meaning ul te0t 77 although Fas the e0ample rom ,oethe indicatesG it indeed takes a great deal o trying. 9ut the main thrust o (avin) the Appearances derives rom a very simple propositionB i we really believe what the physical sciences have told us about the dependence o the given world upon the one who perceives" then we ought to hold onto the belie consistently 77 something that is almost never done. That thought leads to a number o othersB .e must distinguish between the Fpossibly eccentricG representations o the individual" and the <collective representations< constituting the public world. I4I .hat is given to us by these collective representations encompasses everything we think o as the world when we-re not doing our ormal physics or philosophy 77 right down to and including the brutest solidity" the physical e0istence" o the planet earth. .hen we are doing physics or philosophy" we dismiss this planet earth in avor o a rare ied Fand too o ten rei iedG realm o <particles.< The undisciplined shi t rom one rame o thought to the other accounts or most o the a orementioned inconsistency Fpp. 187+1G. 'ne aspect o this inconsistency is the almost universal writing o imaginary natural histories by paleontologists" botanists" geologists" and so on. <It can do no harm to recall occasionally that the prehistoric evolution o the earth" as it is described or e0ample in the early chapters o H. ,. .ells- Out$ine of History" was not merely never seen. It never occurred< Fp. 1=G. Any serious look at history reveals" moreover" that the collective representations Fdown to and including the solid planet earthG have changed remarkably over time. I we would imagine an arbitrary prehistory" the irst 5uestion we must answer is why we clothe that prehistory in the peculiar sort o appearances characteri6ing our day" rather than those o some earlier day. There may" a ter all" be good reasons or deeming the earlier representations more ade5uate to the reality Fp. 1=G. The primordial earth cannot consistently be thought o even in terms o potentia$ phenomena" <unless we also assume an unconscious" ready to light up into actual phenomena at any moment in the process< Fp. 118G. .hat is most <ob3ective< about the world 77 what is least dependent upon the whims o the sub3ect 77 is what we usually think o as going on <inside our heads"< namely" thinking. In actual act" thinking goes on in the world and is the inside o the world.

I said I could scarcely gesture toward the argument in (avin) the Appearances" and that was the scarcely gesturing. 'ne who is not amiliar with the disturbingly vivid tapestry o 9ar ield-s thought might well 3udge all this to be a kind o intellectual trick. Anyone who dives into the work" however" should be prepared or the eventual reali6ation that the real trick is the one our intellects have played on us over the past several hundred years" by putting nearly beyond comprehension many understandings that once were mere common sense. 9ar ield would enable us to regain these lost sensibilities 77 but in a modern conte0t. (n being res onsible for the world 9ar ield" then" sets us down be ore a <virtual reality< that turns out not be be virtualH he brings us back to the amiliar world 77 not a phantom o our sub3ectivity" but rather the surround rom which our consciousness has contracted into its bright ocus. 'ur inside is also the inside o the world. #repared or not" he tells us" we now bear a responsibility or what the world becomes. The agent o evolutionary change in the world" having once worked rom without inward" has progressively reached consciousness in the individual" wide7awake human being" who must now learn to speak the creative word outward" rom within himsel . 'ur toying with virtual realities Fone can now addG is a remote and abstract echo o what is really re5uired o usB to animate and regenerate our world rom within while retaining our hard7won wake ulness. It is an endangered world or which 9ar ield would have us take responsibility. %oreover" or good or ill" consciously or unconsciously" we cannot help e0ercising that responsibility. 2or e0ample" our penchant or virtual realities is itsel contributing to
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what the world becomes. It is entirely conceivable that" in the end" we will lose all distinction between the real and the virtualH it re5uires only that we attend ever more e0clusively to our new" virtual realities 77 to the in ormational abstractions o cyberspace 77 while ignoring the phenomenal world. .e will by that means inally succeed in rendering the inside o the world abstract. The inner li e with which we animate the world will be the <li e< o a program. There is" a ter all" no fina$ distinction between the virtual and the real. That is why the term <virtual reality< proves so slippery" seeming to apply alternately to everything and nothing. (very representational work o art is a virtual reality. F9ut" then" to one degree or another we work artistically upon everything in our earthly environment.G (very stick7and7ball <model< o atoms and molecules is a virtual reality 77 in this case an embodied abstraction bearing almost no phenomenal truth" but giving e0pression to certain theoretical constructs. (very photograph and television image is a virtual reality 77 a two7dimensional abstraction rom the amiliar world" reinvested with a set o dimmed7down meanings suitable or such an abstraction. I8I *e are surrounded! in fact! with e6teriors into which we have +reathed our own pecu$iar interiors . That" in their highly restricted way" is what virtual realities are. 9ut that" 9ar ield urges us to remember" is in a much uller sense also what the world is. The supposedly clear7cut line between human creations and nature simply cannot be ound. It is not there. *et we may lose sight o this act. As participative e0periences" virtual realities seem so distinctive in part because we have lost our awareness o our participation in the world. #erhaps also they awaken in us memories o an earlier relation to nature. .e can" then" choose either o two directions. I virtual realities remind us o a orgotten" more participative immersion in the world" it is possible that they will stimulate us to a renewed" more conscious participation. They may even provide us with a starting point" since Finitially" at leastG the di erence between the virtual and the real catches our attention. I we contemplate that di erence" moving in thought rom the virtual to the real" we will actually discover more o ourselves <out there"< not less. 2or through disciplined" scienti ic imagination we will" like ,oethe" ind in the world an inner meaning F our meaningG" a ullness o being" that no abstractions 77 no programming languages and bit7manipulated graphics 77 can mediate. The alternative 77 and surely it is a potential we all must sense within ourselves 77 is that we will be content to convert the world rom real to virtual 77 continuing in the direction o the past ew hundred years. Then" too" the di erence between virtual and real will eventually vanish" not because we have penetrated the world more deeply and creatively" e0tending our responsible reach rom arti act to nature" but rather because we will have inally abandoned the world to arti ice. -eferences 1. <The $ediscovery o %eaning"< p. 1?. This popular article was reprinted in 9ar ield" 1?==b. The remaining 5uotations in this section are rom the same source. +. There are signs in some 5uarters that this <,oethean science< is beginning to be taken more seriously in our day. See" or e0ample" Ra3onc" 1??1H Schwenk" 1?;8H Adams and .hicher" 1?>AH (delglass et al." 1??+. 1. The ollowing 5uotations are rom this book. 4. 9ar ield initially describes a representation as <something I perceive to be there< Fp. 1?G. 8. See chapter +1" <%ona Cisa-s Smile"< and chapter ++" <Seeing in #erspective.< Education Without Com uters The abyss separating child rom adult is strange and ba ling. .ho among us can look at a classroom o children and tell which one will grow into his ull powers" and which one will 77 say" at age twenty or thirty or i ty 77 begin to shrink rom li e and growth" allowing his capacities to shrivel? .e hear o ten about the <unpromising< childhood o an (instein or a Churchill" but not so o ten about the many e0ceptional promises o youth that never 5uite come to lower. 9oth are enigmas the educator must decipher. How can he pretend to teach" i he averts his eyes rom the ruling mysteries o childhood? I education is a matter o cultivating capacities rather than shoveling into the child a 5uantity o testable knowledge" then our di iculty in recogni6ing how those capacities 77 uture potentials 77 are developing suggests that we don-t know a whole lot about what we-re doing. #erhaps this humbling awareness is the irst re5uirement or a good teacher. Three characteristics o .aldor education have particularly drawn me to itB F1G precisely the sense o humility 3ust described" combined with a grave acceptance o responsibilityH F+G a conviction that the teacher can learn to recogni6e and cultivate the individual child-s un olding capacitiesH and F1G a deeply elt resistance to the use o computers in the primary school curriculum. "hat is "a!#orf e# cationA

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2ounded in 1?1? by $udol Steiner in Stuttgart" ,ermany" .aldor schools Fsometimes called Steiner schoolsG now constitute the largest and astest growing nonsectarian educational movement in the world. .hile the movement is strongest in (urope" the Association o .aldor Schools o &orth America embraces appro0imately one hundred member schools. 'ver the past i teen years" new schools have been orming in the !nited States and Canada at the rate o about nine per year. In addition" there are 11A .aldor kindergartens" ourteen high schools and ive teacher training institutes. I1I .orldwide" some 1+A"AAA students at over si0 hundred schools in thirty7two countries are today receiving a .aldor education. )uring the past ew years" $ussia and the ormer Iron Curtain countries have placed particularly strong demands upon the movement. Almost all o those countries now have teacher training programs. .aldor education" arising rom pro ound convictions about the nature o the child and the world" re5uires an uncommonly strong commitment rom its practitioners. FI nothing else" teacher salaries running well below public school rates tend to ensure a high level o commitment.G Although teachers operate within a broad" <given< educational conte0t" they bear e0tensive responsibility or developing the particulars o their own curriculum. %oreover" this responsibility is compounded each year" as the teacher moves with his class rom irst grade through eighth. The .aldor classroom presents two sides that may" at irst glance" appear contradictory. 'n the one hand" nearly everythin) in the child-s environment is taken to be important. The teacher-s bearing Fhis grace and art" his reverence or nature" his deeply won authorityGH the materials o the classroom Fnatural ob3ects such as wooden branches" seashells" lowers" rocks" abrics" as well as the room itsel GH every activity o the child Fplay as well as studyGH and above all the child himsel 77 his volition and eeling ully as much as his intellect 77 a$$ these things are consciously considered in their relevance to the child-s education. It would be easy or such all7 embracing concerns" e0pressed wrongly" to su ocate the child. *et" at the same time" the kingdom o childhood remains the ocus" and the laws o this kingdom are laws o play" imagination" and reedom. I everything is important" yet nothing should be taken with an oppressive seriousness. *es" the details count" but they count only because they must serve the needs o a child who is growing toward a right ul mastery o the world. Steiner put it this wayB <accept the children with reverence" educate them with love" send them orth in reedom.< In what ollows" I try to capture something o the <.aldor spirit"< as e0pressed by some o its leading e0ponents. It is doubtless true" as every reader will eel" that such e0traordinary demands upon the teacher as are described here must be di icult to satis y" so that every .aldor classroom must all short o the ideal. In act" I have ound that many teachers eel this short all as their own" private burden. 9ut at the same time" the ideal embodies a set o understandings that many ind compelling. And" more to the immediate point" these understandings orm the positive backdrop against which the criticisms in #A$T T.' o this book can most use ully be viewed. 2or brevity" I present the ollowing in my own voice" instead o reiterating" <.aldor educators believe ... "< <.aldor educators claim ... "< and so on. At the same time" it should be clear that the views set orth here are ones with which I at least eel com ortable" even i I lack the knowledge and e0perience to assert them all on my own account.

Transfor&ation of capacities .aldor students o ten spend time knitting in the irst grade. A. C. Harwood" a li elong .aldor educator" has remarked" <.hen he grows up the man will think more cogently and more harmoniously because the child practiced this skill 3ust at the time when his irst independent thinking was born.< I+I Puite a stretch? )oubtless. 9ut it-s a stretch that runs through the entire .aldor curriculum. The child is not simply an incomplete or ailed adult" nor is he dumber than we are. $ather" he simply e0periences the environment with another consciousness Fand much more intensely than the adultG .... The intellectual cognitive capacity develops slowly as the result o the most diverse metamorphoses. .hy is it that we so o ten disregard these changes in the child? 9ecause we attribute our own completed state o consciousness to the child .... In addition" we allow ourselves to be misled by what the child" as an imitative being" picks up rom the adult on a super icial level. ?A> Imitation does not necessarily represent capacity. The true capacities pass through dramatic trans ormations" much as the green seed leaves o a tiny plant grow into the rapidly e0panding stem leaves and then are transmuted again into sepals and" inally" into the colored e0uberance o the lower petals" in which" however" a properly trained observation can still recogni6e a metamorphosis o the irst shoot. .aldor educators o ten cite this law o metamorphosis 77 irst discovered in the plant by ,oethe 77 as a law o all growing things. .hat we sow in the child must sink down into his being in seedlike child7 orms be ore it can emerge again" mature" and lower into an adult capability. Here is another e0ample o a trans ormation 77 this time one which many a teacher will intuitively recogni6eB
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An individual will be able to make the right use o reedom later" i as a child" and in the most natural way" he is allowed to place himsel under the absolute authority o a well7liked adult" i he is able to eel respect or an adult. The respect o a child or a particular person 77 which is actually respect or the truth the way it is silently e0pressed by that particular adult 77 is later trans ormed into respect or the ob3ective truth" independent o any human being .... .ithout authority there is no reedom. ?A> It is critically important" there ore" that the teacher be worthy o respect. <The only important thing in a school is the teacher< ?A>. There is much con usion on this point" however" or in our eagerness to respect the child-s autonomy and to turn him into a <sel 7 learner< 77 worthy enough concerns 77 we may ind it easy to deprive him o his anchor. .e may even do this out o a kind o modesty. 9ut a child thus set adri t rom what his own nature bids him respect is a child who inally will lose his respect even or the authority o truth. .hat we adults have come to reckon with on a relatively abstract level Fnamely" TruthG" must irst approach the child concretely" ully embodied" personi ied. So it is with everything the child may healthily absorb. A balancing principle will help to avoid the con usionB the teacher-s authority should never be employed simply to < ill< the student with particular thoughts. Content is used solely to e0ercise and develop capacities that must remain ree. The sub3ect matter alone" as the by7product o passive" intellectual thinking" has a destructive and crippling e ect on the child .... I am not even allowed to give the child something that he may keep in that e0act conceptual orm. &othing should be permanently stamped on the child-s mind like a taped message" the way the recorder does it. ?A> However" this does not imply that we should e0pose the child only to what he can FintellectuallyG understand. 2ollowing such a principle" we restrict his hori6ons in the most disheartening way" cutting him o rom his connection to distant mysteries that may otherwise inspire a li etime 5uest. <,reat truths" which a child has absorbed with eelings o awe" 3oy or love" without Munderstandingthem" sink into the sleeping will precisely because they are not irst intercepted by the intellect.< 'n the other hand" what is intercepted by the awake intellect <will not sink into the depths o the child-s soul" and can there ore no longer grow and trans orm itsel . Instead" it turns into one o those indigestible knowledge7stones that are such a burden on modern man< ?A>. How can the primary7age student <absorb< great truths without understanding them intellectually? Above all" in pictures. That is how the childhood o our race received its understanding 77 in mythic imagery. And that is why" in the lower grades" myth and airy tale are primary resources or the .aldor teacher. )uring the later grades" the pictures remain" but they steadily evolve into more elaborated and thought7saturated images" such as the ,oethean image o the <archetypal< metamorphosis o the plant" and" above all" the image o the human being as a microcosm o the universe. In all cases" the student is encouraged to see the world around him artistically" drawing upon the deepest powers o his imagination. Schoo!s for the hea# According to the .aldor educators" we can all too easily abort the child-s necessary trans ormations simply by imposing our adult intellects upon him prematurely. !nlike pictures a child builds up in his own mind" the thought7products o the intellect lack plasticity. They are rigid and restrictive 77 inished 77 bound to the unyielding orms o conventional logic and mathematics. (ven as adults" how o ten do we ind that" by seeking <intellectual clarity< too 5uickly 77 by ailing" that is" to dwell long enough within a luid" pictorial" and imaginative contemplation o the myriad possible <shapes< o a problem 77 we lock our understanding into a kind o ro6en state? &ew insight penetrates such a state only with the greatest di iculty. Inspired insights o ten strike one only a ter an interval o orget ulness in rest or sleep. The bene icial rhythms o orgetting range all the way rom the brie est period Fone sometimes has to <let go< o the e ort to remember something in order to recall it 3ust a moment laterG to the entire span o a li etime. The child" too" must be allowed to orget. 'nly then will seeds planted in one orm eventually gain the power to blossom in 5uite another. <#ictorial" imaginative thinking" tended properly and with care" will in due course be trans ormed< into a clear" rational thinking <which is rationality itsel " and cannot be into0icated or deceived by any kind o antastic ideas< ?A>. 9ut most schools are attuned to the demands o the intellect. <.ho ever heard o a child being promoted because he was e0ceptionally good at painting or music" or because he e0celled at acting or needlework?< ?H>. A child who" at a particularly early age" learns to read the abstract and Fin our dayG meaningless orms o the alphabet 77 instead o irst e0periencing something more like the picture7 writing o the ancients 77 is hailed as a triumph o pedagogy. There is no doubt we can develop the techni5ues to produce such triumphs with ever greater e iciencyB It lies in the power o the adult to develop mental habits in a child either earlier or later. He can" i he so wishes" make the child conscious and develop his thinking and his memory at a very early age. I he does so" he will certainly narrow the scope o his mind even i he trains it to much acuteness in a limited sphere. ?H> .e can summari6e this entire emphasis upon the trans ormation o capacities rom child to adult by noting Aeppli-s remark that <in any educational action" what matters is not that something is done" but how and when.< The how challenges us to present the child with those human 5ualities he can respect and take most deeply into himsel . The when warns us to synchroni6e our teaching with the natural development o the child-s native capacities" rather than to stimulate the intellect in a one7sided manner that may satis y us while be5ueathing to the child a barren sterility o outlook.
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The nity of art an# science The child-s natural interests are not arti icially segmented. 2ragmentation is a <gi t< o the educational process. The .aldor teacher strives to bring all sub3ect matter into an artistic unity. )uring primary school" painting and modeling are usually not taught by a specialist teacher" lest the child accept this divorce o art rom the rest o li e. $ather" art is brought to the other sub3ects" and they are brought to art. 2or e0ample" <in mathematics ... you will have a pro ound and bene icial in luence on children i you bring their sense o the beauti ul into the heart o all that they learn. Artistic children 77 o ten little inclined to mathematical studies 77 will show great interest i they discover that there is beauty also in this sub3ect< ?H>. Thus" To sound the note o a stretched string" and then discover that to obtain the octave above the string must be divided e0actly into hal " is a great 3oy to children. They realise that the ear is a mathematician" perhaps a better mathematician than they are in their conscious heads. ?H> In what many o us will have to think another <reach"< Aeppli observes that an artistically structured lesson produces a healthy lush on the children-s aces" together with a reer" lighter" and yet more intense breathing. I " on the other hand" <despite all our wonder ul pedagogical knowledge" we have taught all morning as a ossili6ed schoolmaster" merely out o our highly developed intellect" then" provided our eyes have become sharp enough" we can read the e ects o such teaching in the children. .e see that their aces are somewhat paler" somewhat more drained o blood than usual" even i only slightlyH or we may suddenly notice that the children no longer breathe as reely as be ore.< .hatever our ability to see such things" it remains true that the child-s nature is to take in the surrounding world with his whole being. It conduces to health on every level i his surroundings are ull o grace" beauty and truth. I can say 77 speaking on my own behal 77 that I have never seen such warm and appealing classrooms as I have ound in the several .aldor schools I have visited. (2servation 2efore theory An artistic education can only grow out o observation and imagination. 'ne o the most stunning things about modern education is the rapid precedence assigned to theory. 2ar too many children know all the theories" but cannot tell you what they could see with their own eyes" i they had been encouraged to use them. They will know all about the solar system and perhaps about spectro7analysis o the stars" but they cannot tell you the state o the moon or point out the constellations. They know theories o evolution" but not the names o the trees or plants around them. ?H> The ways in which observation may serve learning are endless. Here I e0tract 3ust a ew e0amples rom Harwood" who is speaking about grades si0 through eightB To pick up again on the vibrating string" the children can devise methods or changing the length" and thereby learn to identi y the distinct notes. They can investigate the musical intervals and relate them to the corresponding numerical proportions. 9y placing a pulley at one end o the string and attaching weights" they can discover the relation between the note and the tension. They may even go urther and make pipes out o bamboo. In related lessons" the Chladny plate brings to visibility the beauti ul patterns created by sound. 9y such methods the invisible world takes on concrete orm within human e0perience +efore it is reduced to the thin abstraction o number. The laws o color can likewise be approached through both observation and art. There is no need to begin with wavelength" re5uency" and other mathematical constructs. The basic phenomena the theory is designed to e0plain should enter the children-s awareness be ore the theory itsel H otherwise the phenomena tend to become invisible 77 displaced orever in the child-s intellect by theoretical constructs such as <photon"< <wave"< and <spectrum.< Thus" one can learn about complementary colors by staring at a patch o green and then removing one-s eyes to a light sur ace" whereupon one <sees< red. Similarly" a ter looking at red" one sees green. Color mi0ing naturally ollows this" together with observation o such occurrences as colored shadows" the way distance a ects color Fa topic that greatly ascinated the $enaissance artists" who learned to tint remote mountains with blueG" the e ects o di erent atmospheric conditions upon the light o the sun" and so on. ,eometry" too" should emerge or the child as a practical" observational skill" much as it did or the ancients. A rubber band around two pegs" with a moving inger serving as the third verte0" allows the child to develop a luid" accurate image o the triangle in its in inite possible mani estations 77 all the way to and <beyond< a straight line. In this ashion the learner actually sees that the three angles o a triangle amount to two right angles. This is much di erent rom beginning with a set o a0ioms and proceeding to <prove< the theorem through deductive in erence be ore there is any ull e0perience o the triangle-s nature. 'r" again" there is geologyB To bring a ragment o granite or limestone into a class and talk about its chemical composition is to detach it rom the earth. 2irst o all the children should orm an imaginative picture o chalk hills" or limestone ridges" or granite mountains 77 and i they live in one such district all the more should the teacher help them to see it with the imaginative eye. .hat happens to the rain when it alls on these various soils" what kind o trees and lowers grow best on them" what crops they produce and" above all" o what they are ormed and how they got there 77 to deal with these 5uestions is to keep the mineral world in its true connection with the living earth.
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It makes a pro ound impression on children to know that the great chalk and limestone and marble masses o the earth are the creation o living organisms. I they learn this at the right age their minds will not be closed to the idea that it is the dead which comes rom the living" and not the living rom the dead. ?H> .ith each passing year" the observation becomes more impregnated with elaborated thought. 9ut thought is never allowed to tear ree rom observation and become lost in abstraction. .hen" or e0ample" ,alileo is studied between the ages o twelve and ourteen" the children might be allowed to pull each other up with block and tackle. In the ninth grade" devices such as the heat engine and telephone can be studied. Technical drawings will be made" the laws o pressure and e0pansion will be studied and practical problems worked out. The children should be astonished to discover how much there is to learn about things which they have perhaps come to look on as already amiliar. ?H> It was" I think" Steiner who remarked that our use o so many devices whose basic working principles we do not understand pro oundly oppresses the human spirit 77 even though we may scarcely be aware o the e ect. Certainly the well7documented popular <phobias< regarding everything rom digital clocks to @C$s are consistent with this claim. .herever there is ear or an inner shrinking rom things 77 or even 3ust the absence o any sense o meaning ul connection 77 can the psyche be in a healthy state? The secondary student may go on to design bridges" study human physiology" and" in mathematics" pursue such topics as trigonometry" transcendental numbers" and conics. The conics" according to Harwood" are particularly valuable or helping the student move with disciplined imagination rom the inite through the in inite and back" or the <shades o the prison house< are closing heavily upon him .... To be able to use this new weapon o thought to cut through the walls o this prison" to think in terms o the in inite" and yet relate the in inite to the spatial and the visible" is like a kind o spiritual breathing. Thought begins to ind its way back to its spiritual origins. And" inally" during the eleventh and twel th grades" it becomes critically important or the student to ind a human approach to the computer" and likewise to electricity" radio" radar" television" and so on. A student who" during the previous ew years was very likely satis ied with the practical <how?< o things now begins to seek the <what?< at a new and deeper level. !n ortunately" in many schools this is precisely when he is hit with a mass o technical detail rom sciences that have given up virtually all concern with anything e0cept the <how?< Harwood inds this un ortunateB JThe studentK must at least glimpse the possibility o understanding what the world is. That understanding may not go very ar at this age. 9ut unless the curtain is parted a little at the critical time" it will only too easily densi y into an iron one" and the adult will go through li e believing that the ultimate 5uestions are unanswerable" or alling back on a aith which his conscious mind and his reason cannot support or 3usti y. ?H> #ersonally" I cannot help wondering how much o the appeal o virtual reality or the young person lies in the impenetrability o the <real world< we have handed him. 9ut how can we approach the <what?< o the world? The .aldor educator-s deep conviction is that we can do so only by turning toward the human being. H &an-centere# e# cation <It is only in modern times"< writes Harwood" <that man has imagined he can know the world without knowing himsel .< Sometimes it seems that we have turned this older view inside outB we struggle to know ourselves by irst knowing the world. An ascending staircase leading rom physics through physiology to sociobiology a ords the primary approach to the human being acceptable to the dominant academic mindset o our day. .hatever the 3usti ication or that mindset" it is oreign to the child" who longs to discover himsel 77 that is" a spirit akin to his own spirit 77 in the world. All human knowledge was once myth7based" and this is the most natural thing or the child. To deny the child his kinship with the world because that kinship so easily inds <religious< e0pression would be misguided" or it is not a matter o any particular religionB &o child longs or a dogma" or a religious denomination" or a political or other kind o programH he longs neither or paci ism nor nationalism. .hat he does want is to grasp the spiritual in luences on nature and on world history" or they are ood or his soul. ?A> Aeppli goes on to mention how the child in the lower grades 77 i his impulses have not been arti icially inhibited 77 will speak <to sun and moon" mountain and stream" dog and bird" stone and stick as though to his e5uals. He is connected to them through orces which are no longer present in the adult" or do not appear to be.< :ust as the world does not come divided into <sub3ects< or the child" neither does it come rigidly separated into sel and nonsel . 'nly with time does the latter distinction become radical 77 and 3ust how radical may vary rom one adult to another ar more than is commonly reali6ed. %uch depends upon how" and at what age" we insert 77 using the power ul wedge o the intellect 77 a distance between child and world.
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9ut preserving the child-s connection to the world does not mean starting with the man7made ob3ects in the classroomB .hat is close to the seven7 and eight7year7old child? .hat does his world look like? Is it the chair on which he sits" the notebook in which he writes" the playground in which he romps? 'r is he perhaps even more deeply connected to the sun" moon and stars? ... Is what is close to his body also close to his soul? 'r is he closest in his <consciousness"< in his <thoughts"< precisely to the heavenly bodies" as well as to clouds and winds" trees and lowers" water and ire? )oes he not live particularly deeply and vividly with these things as long as he remains unspoiled? And does the small child ind the classroom" the house" the town" everything planned and built by men to be oreign" ar removed and incomprehensible? ... In the beginning was the whole world 77 that is a mental image which is closer to the child than the one ... which elevates the classroom to the origin o all e0istence. ?A> Thus" history begins with the most ancient civili6ations 77 India" #ersia" (gypt" 9abylon" and ,reece. Here the child is closest to home" sustained by peoples who" like him" e0perienced a world o images" a world sacred" alive" and nurturing" the bearer o every individual destiny. The child thrives on this and will" in due time" begin to <wake up< with the discoveries o the $enaissance and Scienti ic $evolution. 9ut his waking" then" will not be a nightmareH he will be waking to a world in which he belongs. I1I The child will 77 and must 77 steadily <come to himsel "< standing within his own center and learning to look out upon the world with the most rigorous ob3ectivity possible. 9ut even in his maturity" i that ga6e returns to him nothing o himsel 77 i he has been taught to recogni6e <out there< only atoms moving in the void 77 then he will be cut o not only rom the world but rom himsel as well. %uch in modern li e attests to alienation. Harwood points to one symptom when he remarks" <It is a strange thing that an age which has discovered so many marvels in the universe should be so conspicuously lacking in the sense o wonder.< .aldor educators appear committed to rediscovering the sources o wonder. Actually" I think they would say that the small child is already illed with wonder. 'ur task is to avoid robbing him o it. 1 .or# a2o t the preschoo!er The child" in the view o .aldor educators" is a work o art. He thinks" eels" and wills as a living unity. At the same time" he e0periences the world as a work o art" an image" and reads it in harmony with himsel . 9oth child and environment are works7in7 progress 77 the environment Fi it is healthyG ostering a natural development o the child-s capacities" and the child bringing to his environment a gi t uni5uely his own. In the preschooler" this unity is e0pressed above all as a kind o will ul imitation o his environment by the child. &ot an adult imitation" mediated by a highly developed thought li e and care ul observation" but rather an instinctive" participative imitation. His imitation" so to speak" proceeds rom within the phenomena he is imitating" rather than rom outside. Harwood cites Thomas Traherne-s remarkable evocation o his earliest childhoodB An 'b3ect" i it were be ore %ine (ye" was by )ame &ature-s Caw .ithin my SoulH her Store .as all at once within meB all her Treasures .ere my immediate and internal #leasuresH... .hat the child absorbs in this way is nearly everything. All o his most <brilliant< learning occurs during these irst years. He learns" or e0ample" to speak 77 not like a parrot" nor by applying well developed" intellectual <learning skills"< but by taking directly into himsel meanings that most o us could not even put into words. FTry e0plaining the de initions o <but< or <by< to a toddlerDG Steiner claimed to see in these imitative powers such a deep" organic drive that even some o what we consider to be hereditary physical likeness is actually a matter o the child-s imitation o his amily surroundings. The child-s openness to <e0ternal< in luence has huge implicationsB The corollary to the child-s immersion in his surroundings is that the in luence o his surroundings penetrates him to an e5ual depth. The personal consciousness o the adult is a de ence against his surroundings. He may be irritated or annoyed to e0asperation by some continuous noiseB but his consciousness keeps it rom penetrating into those unconscious spheres where organic processes are taking place within him. The child may appear not even to hear the noise" but it enters so deeply within him that the orces o growth are a ected" and perhaps weakened or impaired. ?H> The adults around the young child are the most power ul teachers he will ever know. So" too" un ortunately" are the television and other noise7making contrivances o modern civili6ationB .hat he needs is that the adults" whose talk he hears and imitates" should speak clearly and beauti ully and with a ection. 2or the child is as sensitive to the mood as he is to the sound o the tones around him. The impersonal voice o radio and gramophone is not what he needs to imitate. A mother-s singing" however poor" is ar better or her baby than the best o records. ?H> Consistent with this imitation is the preschooler-s love o repetition. The simple stories you tell must be told <correctly< 77 which means <imitating the last time< 77 or you will hear about itD I$K.1A.8-AC)'$2 (1A.8-)!CATI'& 1A.8-I& #1A.8-$ACTIC(
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9 estions an# stories .aldor educators see the preschooler as unctioning primarily in his wi$$" as e0pressed through activity. It is the moving ob3ect that catches his eye" and he immediately insists on touching it. <Cet me see with my hands"< Harwood reports one e0asperated child e0claiming when asked to look at an interesting ob3ect. <Do not touch is to a child the most desolatory o adult prohibitions.< 9ut around age seven 77 and in an evolving manner until puberty 77 a strong eeling7consciousness comes to the ore. The child who previously <thought with his limbs< now thinks more with his eelings. It is" there ore" a strongly pictorial thinking" e0pressed through images laden with eelings o sympathy and antipathy. Children o ive will be satis ied by a story about very simple activities. *ou can tell them how the armer goes out in the evening to eed his animals" and irst he goes to his pigs" and then to his cows" and then to his sheep" and so on" and in what language they all thank him and say good nightH and then how he comes home and eats the lovely supper his wi e has prepared or him and goes to bed himsel . The mere picture o the successive actions is a story or these little children. 9ut i you told such a story to children o seven and upwards you would have a very poor reception. 2or them a story must live in the sway o eeling. There must be a time when the young prince is lost alone in the orest" and night comes and dread ul noises issue rom the darkness and there is a lashing o mysterious eyes. Then at last he sees the welcome sight o a cottage with the red glow o a com orting ire shining through the window. At this cottage door the prince must knock seven times Fnot less than seven times in this age o rhythmG and" when he has almost given up hope" he hears a ootstep within and the bolts are slowly drawn. And who is it who at last opens the door? A right ul witch. He turns to run but inds himsel rooted to the ground .... All this sway o eeling" which would have been meaningless or harm ul to the ive7year7olds" is the very li e7blood o a story to these older children who have passed the threshold o a new e0perience. 2or the soul no less than the body now demands its systole and diastole" the contraction o ear and sorrow" the e0pansion o laughter and hope. .hat is the reproach uttered by the children in the 9ible? <.e have piped unto you and you have not dancedH we have mourned to you and you have not wept.< The children wish to play at weddings and unerals" to en3oy both laughter and tears. It is the duty o adults to give them the right opportunities to do so. ?H> Image" symbol" rhythm" the sway o eeling. The children will skip and dance" tell endless stories Fin which they eel themselves participantsG" imagine elaborate playthings in misshapen rags and sticks" learn to play team sports" sing songs. The child is pulling away rom the world 77 but only to a degree. His unity with his environment is no longer directly imitativeH it is a unity given above all in pictures" much as the ancient myths mediated to mankind a uni ied e0perience o the world. The children learn in picturesH they <think< in pictures. As Harwood points out" i one particular child is slighted and disliked by the others" an admonition will more likely make the situation worse than better. 9ut tell the class Cinderella stories over a ew days" and soon the children will noticeably alter their behavior. The children take in the pictures o the story" and learn rom them. .aldor teachers re5uently make up stories to deal with speci ic disciplinary problems. They also use ables or this purpose. <.hat are the cruel tiger" the dumb monkey" the stubborn mule" the magnanimous lion" but real" concrete soul aculties JportrayedK in animal orm" which today" in abstractions ar removed rom li e" we call gentleness" patience" and brutality?< The child cannot respond to calls or <patience.< 9ut he can recogni6e and take into himsel the virtue imaged in the abled animal. 2ailure to reali6e this pictorial 5uality o childhood consciousness leads to the almost universal tragedy o our dayB instructing the young in the highly abstract terms o scienti ic cause and e ect. The )utch psychologist Hendrik van den 9erg Fwho" so ar as I know" was not associated with .aldor educationG drew attention to the horror o so many adult answers to the incessant 5uestions o the childB .hy are the leaves red? 9ecause o the cold 77 how untrue. .hy is it cold? 9ecause o the sun-s position 77 untrue. .hy is the sun so low? 9ecause o the earth-s location in its orbit 77 e5ually untrue. .hy its location in an orbit? 9ecause o the motion. !ntrue again. .hy motion? 9ecause o continuous motion? !ntrue. .hy continuous motion? 9ecause o ,od. .hat blasphemyD <.hy are the leaves red" )ad?< <9ecause it is so beauti ul" child. )on-t you see how beauti ul it is" all these autumn colors?< There is no truer answer. That is how the leaves are red. 'r" again" <)addy" why does it snow?< <.ell" during the summer there are leaves on the trees and lowers on plants" but now it is so dark and barren outside" that the world needs a white blanket.< 9ut no one believes in this answer. .e do not believe in answers which locate the sense o incidents within the incidents themselves" and the sense o things within the things themselves. To us it is necessary or the sense to lie outside the things and incidents" outside the present. This is our irst rule o li e" that only what lies in the past has sense. The result is an endless regression. 2or every past has been present be ore and must have derived its sense rom a still earlier past. This road o endless regression is the road on which we have sent the child. I4I As Harwood points out" i we really want to know what sort o answer the child e0pects and will be satis ied with 77 that is" i we really want to know what he is asking 77 it is o ten enough to delay answering. The child will answer his own 5uestion. Harwood cites the case o a si07year7old girl who asked" <.hat makes the rain go up into the sky?< A pu66ling 5uestion or an adult" to be sure.
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9ut the <universe o discourse< in which the child was operating was 5uickly revealed when she said" <It-s because the angels want to drink.< .e adults have a choiceB to seek by orce o superior intellect to wrench the child into an entirely di erent and alien universe o discourse" or to acknowledge our own in eriority o imagination and try to move with the child in her universe o discourse. <'ne is really only 5uali ied to answer children-s 5uestions when one shares their outlook and has ac5uired a little o their gi t o antasy.< ?H> Thus" or the child o such an age" one answer to <.here do babies come rom< is 5uite properly" < rom the sky.< The maligned stork deserves rehabilitation. Have we altogether orgotten what magic and wisdom there is in the image o a bird winging like a <pregnant thought< through the womblike vault o the sky" bearing a gi t to mankind? Harwood claims that such pictures enable the child to enter into thinking with a vigorous will and deep eeling. These will remain to strengthen the li e o thought in later years. 1rith&etic an# i&agination .hat about arithmetic? The .aldor teacher begins with the largest number 77 one. All other numbers arise rom this primal number as ragments. <This as yet undivided" unbroken original one is the primary actH it stands at the beginning. 9y splitting the one" tearing it into two parts" the number two came into being.< ?A> I you begin with a pile o twelve chestnuts" you can allow the children to divide it into separate" smaller piles in almost unending combinations. They can choose" or e0ample" how many chestnuts to <give< each o several recipients. The single" original pile becomes a resource upon which their reedom and generosity may act. The laws o number apply" but not in a way that thrusts the child rudely Fand alselyG into a realm o inhuman necessity. I on the other hand" we start with the parts rather than the whole" teaching the child that 1S1S1T1 and +S1T8" there is nothing he can do with this. <Instead o creative numerousness he must e0perience unbending compulsion. This will a ect him or the rest o his li e.< ?A> That will seem an e0treme 3udgment only to one who hasn-t digested the peculiar hold o determinism upon the modern mind. .e are accustomed to building the world up rigidly rom atoms 77 and can ind no escape or ourselves 77 whereas the other approach" <the grasping o the whole be ore the parts" is the way o imagination" and leads to the view that it is only the whole which gives meaning and e0istence to the parts. The di erence is as subtle as it is pro ound.< ?H> It is essential to begin reali6ing the historically peculiar tendencies o our own thought" which we should not mistake or necessary ways o thinking. .e all too easily orget what chasms lie between unspoiled childhood and the cultured" twentieth7century mind. I we would truly ree the child" we must not bind him with our own chains 77 even i we are happy enough with those chains ourselves. I have emphasi6ed to this point the younger child" or here we see most easily some o the distinctive principles o .aldor education. It is important to recogni6e" however" that these principles continue to govern this style o education in later years. In act" the .aldor educator will very likely point out that even adult thinking is ar too lost in the abstraction o number" statistics" and meaningless in ormation 77 ar too lacking" that is" in 5ualities o the imagination. A worthy education" there ore" will seek to spare the child this adult a liction. 1n age of transition (very age has its distinctive character. Aeppli describes wonder ully the perple0ing transitions through which the child o nine or ten passes" and his remarks are worth citing at lengthB The children are rather less coordinated than be ore .... The instinctive sure ootedness is no longer there. Instead o the o ten light" dancing steps their tread is now somehow heavier. Also" they no longer abandon themselves so totally to rhythm. In a song" rhythm is no longer o e5ual or even greater importance than the melody ... Jthe childK is no longer at all pleased" or e0ample" when the teacher claps the rhythm o a song or poem with his hands in order to emphasi6e the beat.... The teacher might suddenly become aware that he is standing opposite his children" and that a dangerous chasm has opened between him and them that was not there be ore. The children have slipped away rom me during the vacation" he may say to himsel " and he eels wist ul" or even uncom ortable" or the children are looking at him with more probing" more critical eyes .... The teacher walks down the street with his children. &ot very long ago he had ar too ew hands at such times or all the children hanging on him. &ow he has e0actly two hands too many.... Such a child may suddenly give his mother 5uite a shock by saying" <*ou know" %ommy" none o the airy tales are trueH and as or angels" they don-t e0ist at all.< He says it with the tone" gesture and above all with the conviction o an atheist itinerant preacher. 9ut when the child lies in bed at night he wants his mother to tell him a airy tale and cannot all asleep without it. And how does he listen? .ith enormous interest. He lives in the reality o the airy tale himsel .... The child sees <more clearly< now. He sees himsel suddenly standing opposite things and eels orced to keep his distance rom them. They become more oreign to him and" there ore" 5uestionable. The entire world" in which he so recently participated without e ort" somehow becomes 5uestionable and ull o riddles. Hence all the 5uestions asked by children" which are o ten less important or their content than or the inner tension that caused them to be asked.... Inwardly" he begins to ree6e. He eels himsel kicked out o #aradise. The child can no longer accept JtheK adult as un5uestioned authority as he did be ore. *et" it is precisely at this critical moment that the child needs a leader and helper more than ever. The teacher is thus aced with the task o rebuilding his authority on a new oundation. ' course" the eight7 and nine7year7old child is hungry or knowledge o the world" too" but he can absorb that knowledge only as something whole" as a myth" airy tale or able" that is" in the orm o pictures saturated with li e. 9e it tree or stream" moss or stone" all are living beings that can speak to the
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child .... It is 5uite normal or the teacher to speak about these things indiscriminately as living beings. In act" it is what Jthe childK craves deep down inside. 'n the other hand" i you are involved with children in their tenth year" it is clear 77 this is a ter all a truism 77 that the teacher must now present the world ... in a much more sophisticated way than be ore. The beings must be distinctly separated. An animal is something 5uite di erent rom a plant" not to mention a mountain. (very ob3ect has its own character about which the child would like to learn. .hat until now lived unseparated in the lap o a living and ancient oneness separates in the classroom into the various sub3ects such as botany" 6oology" geography" etc. 5ro& &yth to a2straction At this age" myth gives way to history. 9ut it is history that begins in the dimmest" myth7connected past" where the children eel closest to home. They will study (gyptian hieroglyphics and perhaps even learn brie poems in Sanskrit" Hebrew" and ,reek. They will gain e0perience in the ancient arts and cra ts. 'ne .aldor teacher puts it this wayB History" telling as it does the story o man-s deeds and strivings" stirs the child to a more intense e0periencing o his own humannessH he lives in the drama o history as though he himsel were involved in every happening. As he studies the dynamic progress o humanity through many di erent phases o consciousness he is led to see himsel and the age he lives in as the heirs o an evolutionary process that he in turn will help carry orward .... History +rin)s the chi$d to himse$f. I8I A ter the twel th year" the child begins to grasp abstract ideas. As Harwood notes" <'ne o the arts o teaching at this age is to ind the sub3ects in which the concrete picture most closely e0empli ies the abstract law" so that a natural unity is still preserved.< Harwood and Aeppli present numerous e0amples o course approaches or the later primary grades" as well as high school. 'ne other noteB whereas the primary student needs adult authority worthy o respect" <the secret uncertainty o the adolescent makes him long or a hero 77 o course o his own choosing 77 on whom to model himsel .< ?H> He is prepared to emulate" not particular actions" but rather the adult-s abilities" the adult-s enthusiasm or knowledge and li e. $e erring to the adolescent-s habit o destructive criticism" Harwood writes" <.e should welcome even this destructive 5uality as a sign o mental energy. 2or the teacher-s task is to convert this critical propensity into a 6eal or the ine distinctions o knowledge" and thus turn destruction into creation.<

The teacher It will be evident rom the oregoing that the .aldor teacher 77 in the ideal" i not always in practice 77 moves with her class rom grade one through eight. 9y all accounts" an e0traordinary community o education can grow up by this means. The teacher observes the individual child passing through many stages" and can adapt her lessons to the child-s individual needs. I;I It is a demanding way to teach 77 all the more because the teacher is given no i0ed curriculum. She must develop her own curriculum" year7by7year 77 while ollowing" o course" certain general guidelines. &or can she ully anticipate the directions in which her class will lead her. Children are ull o une0pected 5uestions" interests" and observations" and a good teacher will" to one degree or another" take advantage o these opportunities. %oreover" there is surprisingly little use made o te0tbooks" and o ten little or no homework is assigned. The teacher must be capable o presenting much o the material hersel . The heart o education lies" not in acts or knowledge" but in what passes between human beings. Think o what you gained rom the most in luential teacher in your li e 77 perhaps the one who changed the whole direction o your education. .as it primarily a collection o in ormation" or rather a new" enlarged sense or what it means to be a growing" learning human being within the conte0t o a particular ield o knowledge? .hat the child inds in the teacher must be discovered to be no more rigid and abstract than what he inds in nature. < On$y that which has transformed itse$f in me throu)h my own efforts has a hea$in)! re$easin)! and nourishin) effect on the chi$d2 2or that reason I must not look to replace mysel " the teacher" with the tape recorder.< ?A> Cike the re erence to thinking as cosmic knitting" this may seem a strange thought. 9ut it is strange only so long as we think o knowledge the same way we think o an atom 77 as a <thing< to which we have no inner relationship. 9ut the child has no use or such < acts<H he must ind an inner connection. .e cannot help him in that task unless we" too" have ound such a connection. 9ut to ind it is also to be sub3ect to itH we will be changed. The <spirit in the world< will act upon the <spirit in us.< (ntry to this li e o trans ormation and unending growth is" above all" what we owe the child. Se!ecte# 2i2!iography on "a!#orf e# cation Aeppli" .illi F1?>;G. Rudo$f (teiner -ducation and the Deve$opin) Chi$d2 Hudson" &.*.B Anthroposophic #ress. (dmunds" C. 2rancis F1??+G. Rudo$f (teiner -ducation // The *a$dorf (choo$. Susse0" !.E.B $udol Steiner #ress. Harwood" A. C. F1?8>G. The Recovery of 3an in Chi$dhood2 &ew *orkB %yrin Institute o &ew *ork. Harwood" A. C. F1?>>G. The *ay of a Chi$d2 CondonB $udol Steiner #ress. $ichards" %ary Caroline F1?>AG. Toward *ho$eness@ Rudo$f (teiner -ducation in America2 %iddletown" Conn.B .esleyan !niversity #ress. Spock" %ar3orie F1?>8G. Teachin) as a =ive$y Art. Hudson" &.*.B Anthroposophic #ress. Stockmeyer" (. A. Earl F1?;?G. Rudo$f (teiner4s Curricu$um for *a$dorf (choo$s. Susse0" !.E.B Steiner Schools 2ellowship #ublications.
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%any books about .aldor education are available rom Anthroposophic #ress. *ou can obtain a catalog by writing to the #ress at $$ 4" 9o0 ?47A71" Hudson" &ew *ork 1+814 FTel. 81>7>817+A84G. Also" Renewa$@ A 0ourna$ for *a$dorf -ducation is published by the Association o .aldor Schools o &orth America" 1?11 9annister $oad" 2air 'aks" Cali ornia ?8;+> FTel. ?1;7?;17A?+=G. This organi6ation can supply urther in ormation about .aldor schools and .aldor education. A .aldor discussion group is accessible through the Internet. To receive all messages posted to the group" send the single7line message" <subscribe waldor < to the email address" <listservNs3uvm.st3ohns.edu<. F)o not include the 5uotation marks" and do not add any other te0t to the message.G $i2!iography Adams" ,eorge and .hicher" 'live F1?>AG. The P$ant +etween (un and -arth2 CondonB $udol Steiner #ress. Adler" Al red F1?;4G. The %ndividua$ Psycho$o)y of A$fred Ad$er2 (dited by Hein6 C. Ansbacher and $owena $. Ansbacher. &ew *orkB Harper and $ow. Aeppli" .illi F1?>;G. Rudo$f (teiner -ducation and the Deve$opin) Chi$d2 Hudson" &.*.B Anthroposophic #ress. Aiken" %. F1??1G. <Advantages o ,roup )ecision Support Systems.< %nterpersona$ Computin) and Techno$o)y 1" no. 1 F:ulyG. (lectronically archived as <aiken ipctv1n1< on listservNguvm.cc .georgetown.edu. 9ar ield" 'wen F1?>;G. History in -n)$ish *ords2 Hudson" &.*.B Cindis arne #ress. UUUU F1?;1G. *or$ds Apart ?A Dia$o)ue of the 1"#;4s>2 %iddletown" Conn.B .esleyan !niversity #ress. UUUU F1?;8aG. (avin) the Appearances2 &ew *orkB Harcourt" 9race and .orld. UUUU F1?;8bG. Bnancestra$ .oice2 %iddletown" Conn.B .esleyan !niversity #ress. UUUU F1?;;G. Romanticism Comes of A)e2 CondonB $udol Steiner #ress. UUUU F1?;=G. (pea'er4s 3eanin)2 %iddletown" Conn.B .esleyan !niversity #ress. UUUU F1?=1G. Poetic Diction@ A (tudy in 3eanin)2 %iddletown" Conn.B .esleyan !niversity #ress. UUUU F1?==aG. <Cewis" Truth" and Imagination.< In 9ar ield" 1?>?. UUUU F1?==bG. The Rediscovery of 3eanin)! and Other -ssays2 %iddletown" Conn.B .esleyan !niversity #ress. UUUU F1?=?G. History! ,ui$t! and Ha+it2 %iddletown" Conn.B .esleyan !niversity #ress. UUUU F1?>1G. <The &ature o %eaning.< (even +B 1+741. Available at httpBIImeaningsnature.c3b.net. UUUU F1?>?G. Owen Barfie$d on C2 (2 =ewis2 (dited by ,. 9. Tennyson. %iddletown" Conn.B .esleyan !niversity #ress. 9arlow" :ohn #erry F1??AG. <Crime and #u66lement.< Article distributed on the Internet and dated :une >" 1??A. UUUU F1??4G. <:ackboots on the In obahn.< *ired +" no. 4 FAprilGB 4A" 4474>. 9enedikt" %ichael F1??1G. <CyberspaceB Some #roposals.< In Cy+erspace@ First (teps! edited by %ichael 9enedikt. Cambridge" %ass.B %IT #ress. 9irkerts" Sven F1??+G. <Teaching in the @ideo Age.< In American -ner)ies@ -ssays on Fiction2 &ew *orkB .illiam %orrow. 9os" Ale0ander F1?>1G. Nothin) to Do with 3e5 (dinburghB 2loris 9ooks. 9rown" Tom :r. F1?>+G. The (earch2 &ew *orkB 9erkley 9ooks. 9rown" Tom :r. and .atkins" .illiam :on F1?=?G. The Trac'er2 &ew *orkB 9erkley 9ooks.
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9utter ield" Herbert F1?;8G. The Ori)ins of 3odern (cience2 &ew *orkB The 2ree #ress. Calamai" #eter F1??1G. Address to The International 2ree&et Con erence at Carleton !niversity" 'ttawa. Cobb" &athan F1??AG. <Hacker #ower.< The Boston ,$o+e 3a)a1ine! 'ctober +1" 1??A. Corn ord" 2. %. F1?8=G. From Re$i)ion to Phi$osophy2 &ew *orkB Harper and 9rothers. )ennett" )aniel C. F1??1G. Consciousness -6p$ained2 9ostonB Cittle" 9rown and Company. )eregowski" :an 9. F1?=4G. <#ictorial #erception and Culture.< In %ma)e! O+9ect! and %$$usion! edited by $ichard Held. San 2ranciscoB .. H. 2reeman and Co. )retsky" 2red I. F1?>1G. <now$ed)e and the F$ow of %nformation2 Cambridge" %ass.B %IT #ress. )rucker" #eter 2. F1??1G. Post/Capita$ist (ociety2 &ew *orkB HarperCollins. )umanoski" )ianne F1??AG. <)oing Cess and (n3oying It %ore.< The Boston ,$o+e F:uly +G. Eling" $ob F1??8G. Computeri1ation and Controversy@ .a$ue Conf$icts and (ocia$ Choices2 +d ed. &ew *orkB Academic #ress. (delglass" Stephen" ,eorg %aier" Hans ,ebert" and :ohn )avy F1??+G. 3atter and 3ind2 Hudson" &.*.B Cindis arne #ress. (dgerton" Samuel *. :r. F1?=8G. The Renaissance Rediscovery of =inear Perspective2 &ew *orkB 9asic 9ooks. (dwards" 9etty F1?=?G. Drawin) on the Ri)ht (ide of the Brain2 Cos AngelesB :. #. Tarcher. (llul" :ac5ues F1??AG. The Techno$o)ica$ B$uff2 Translated by ,eo rey .. 9romiley. ,rand $apids" %ich.B (erdmans. 2rederick" Howard H. F1??+G. <(mergence o ,lobal Civil Society.< #aper presented to Annual Con erence o the #eace Studies Association F2ebruary +>G. 9oulder Colo. ,ardner" Howard F1?>8G. The 3ind4s New (cience2 &ew *orkB 9asic 9ooks" Inc. ,ibbs" .. .ayt F1??4G. <So tware-s Chronic Crisis.< (cientific American +=1" no. 1 FSeptemberG. ,ilder" ,eorge F1??1aG. <The )eath o Telephony.< The -conomist FSeptember 11GB =87=>. UUUU F1??1bG. <.hen 9andwidth Is 2ree.< Interview by Eevin Eelly. *ired 1" no. 4. UUUU F1??4G. <An Interview with (ric &ee" #art +.< Bpside F:uneGB 1;788. ,oethe" :ohann .ol gang von F1?>>G. <The %etamorphosis o #lants.< In (cientific (tudies2 (dited and translated by )ouglas %iller. &ew *orkB Suhrkamp. ,ombrich" (. H. F1?;?G. Art and %$$usion@ A (tudy in the Psycho$o)y of Pictoria$ Representation2 #rinceton" &.:.B #rinceton !niversity #ress. ,regory" $. C. F1?;;G. -ye and Brain@ The Psycho$o)y of (eein)2 &ew *orkB %c,raw7Hill 9ook Co. ,uggenbuhl7Craig" Adolph F1?=1G. 3arria)e! Dead or A$ive2 RurichB Spring #ublications. Harwood" A. C. F1?8>G. The Recovery of 3an in Chi$dhood2 &ew *orkB %yrin Institute o &ew *ork. Haugeland" :ohn F1?>1G. 3ind Desi)n2 Cambridge" %ass.B %IT #ress. UUUU F1?>8G. Artificia$ %nte$$i)ence@ The .ery %dea2 Cambridge" %ass.B %IT #ress. Heim" %ichael F1??1G. The 3etaphysics of .irtua$ Rea$ity2 '0 ordB '0 ord !niversity #ress. Ho stadter" )ouglas $. F1?>;G. 3etama)ica$ Themas2 &ew *orkB 9antam 9ooks.
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Ho stadter" )ouglas $." %elanie %itchell" and $obert %. 2rench F1?>=G. <2luid Concepts and Creative AnalogiesB A Theory and Its Computer Implementation.< 2A$, )ocument >=71 F%archG" 2luid Analogies $esearch ,roup" !niversity o %ichigan. Howard" $obert F1?>8G. Brave New *or'p$ace2 &ew *orkB #enguin. :ohnson7Caird" #hilip F1?>>G. The Computer and the 3ind@ An %ntroduction to Co)nitive (cience2 Cambridge" %ass.B Harvard !niversity #ress. :ung" C. ,. F1?;>G. The Archetypes and the Co$$ective Bnconscious2 #rinceton" &.:.B #rinceton !niversity #ress. Euhlewind" ,eorg F1?>4G. (ta)es of Consciousness2 .est Stockbridge" %ass.B The Cindis arne #ress. Cievegoed" 9. C. :. F1?=1G. The Deve$opin) Or)ani1ation2 Translated by :. Collis. CondonB Tavistock #ublications. %ander" :erry F1??1G. %n the A+sence of the (acred@ The Fai$ure of Techno$o)y and the (urviva$ of the %ndian Nations. San 2ranciscoB Sierra Club 9ooks. %c)ermott" )rew F1?=;G. <Arti ical Intelligence %eets &atural Stupidity.< In Haugeland F1?>1GB 1417;A. %ilburn" %ichael A. and %c,rail" Anne 9. F1??+G. <The )ramatic #resentation o &ews and Its ( ects on Cognitive Comple0ity.< Po$itica$ Psycho$o)y 11" no. 4B ;1171+. %itchell" %elanie and Ho stadter" )ouglas $. F1??AaG. <The (mergence o !nderstanding in a Computer %odel o Concepts and Analogy7making.< Physica )4+B 1++714. %itchell" %elanie and Ho stadter" )ouglas $. F1??AbG. <The $ight Concept at the $ight TimeB How Concepts (merge as $elevant in $esponse to Conte0t7)ependent #ressures.< Proceedin)s! 1:th Annua$ Conference of the Co)nitive (cience (ociety2 &eumann" #eter ,. F1??8G. Computer/Re$ated Ris's. $eading" %ass.B Addison7.esley. &orman" )onald F1??1G. Thin)s That 3a'e Bs (mart@ Defendin) Human Attri+utes in the A)e of the 3achine2 $eading" %ass.B Addison7 .esley. &unamaker" :." ). @ogel" A. Heminger" et al. F1?>?G. <(0periences at I9% with ,roup Support SystemsB A 2ield Study.< Decision (upport (ystems 8B 1>17?;. &unamaker" :." A. )ennis" :. @alacich" et al. F1??1G. <(lectronic %eeting Systems to Support ,roup .ork.< Communications of the AC3 14" no. = F:ulyGB 417;1. 'nians" $ichard 9ro0ton F1?81G. The Ori)ins of -uropean Thou)ht@ A+out the Body! the 3ind! the (ou$! the *or$d! Time! and Fate2 CambridgeB Cambridge !niversity #ress. '-Toole" :ames F1?>8G. .an)uard 3ana)ement2 &ew *orkB 9erkley 9ooks. #ano sky" (rwin F1??1G. Perspective as (ym+o$ic Form2 &ew *orkB Rone 9ooks. #apert" Seymour F1??1G. The Chi$dren4s 3achine@ Rethin'in) (choo$ in the A)e of the Computer2 &ew *orkB 9asic 9ooks. #irenne" %. H. F1?8+G. <The Scienti ic 9asis o )a @inci-s Theory o #erspective.< British 0ourna$ for the Phi$osophy of (cience 1" no. 1A. #oppelbaum" Hermann F1?;1G. A New Coo$o)y2 )ornach" Swit6erlandB #hilosophic7Anthroposophic #ress. UUUU F1??1G. The Batt$e for a New Consciousness2 Translated by Thomas 2orman and Theodore @an @liet. Spring @alley" &.*.B %ercury #ress. #ostman" &eil F1?>;G. Amusin) Ourse$ves to Death2 &ew *orkB #enguin. $heingold" Howard F1?>1G. The .irtua$ Community@ Homesteadin) on the -$ectronic Frontier2 $eading" %ass.B Addison .esley. $omanyshyn" $obert ). F1?>?G. Techno$o)y As (ymptom and Dream2 &ew *orkB $outledge.
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$os6ak" Theodore F1??4G. The Cu$t of %nformation@ A Neo/=uddite Treatise on Hi)h Tech! Artificia$ %nte$$i)ence! and the True Art of Thin'in)2 9erkeley" Cali .B !niversity o Cali ornia #ress. $ussell" 9ertrand F1?>1G. 3ysticism and =o)ic2 Totowa" &.:.B 9arnes and &oble. Sardello" $obert F1??+G. Facin) the *or$d with (ou$2 Hudson" &.*.B Cindis arne. Schoenho " )oris %. F1??1G. The Barefoot -6pert@ The %nterface of Computeri1ed <now$ed)e (ystems and %ndi)enous <now$ed)e (ystems2 .estport" Conn.B ,reenwood #ress. Schwenk" Theodor F1?;8G. (ensitive Chaos2 CondonB $udol Steiner #ress. Set6er" @aldemar F1?>?G. Computers in -ducation2 (dinburghB 2loris 9ooks. Shannon" Claude (. F1?;8G. <In ormation Theory.< -ncyc$opedia Britannica2 ChicagoB .illiam 9enton. Simon" Herbert and &ewell" Allen F1?8>G. <Heuristic #roblem SolvingB The &e0t Advance in 'perations $esearch.< Operations Research ; F:an72ebGB 171A. Simon" Herbert A. F1?;8G. The (hape of Automation for 3en and 3ana)ement . &ew *orkB Harper and $ow. Snell" 9runo F1?;AG. The Discovery of the 3ind2 &ew *orkB Harper and $ow. Spock" %ar3orie F1?>8G. Teachin) As a =ive$y Art2 Hudson" &.*.B Anthroposophic #ress. Tolkien" :. $. $. F1?4=G. <'n 2airy Stories.< In -ssays Presented to Char$es *i$$iams2 '0 ordB '0 ord !niversity #ress. UUUU F1?==G. The (i$mari$$ion2 9ostonB Houghton %i lin. van den 9erg" :an Hendrik F1?=8G. The Chan)in) Nature of 3an2 &ew *orkB )ell #ublishing Company. von 9aeyer" Hans Christian F1??+G. Tamin) the Atom2 &ew *orkB $andom House. von Senden" %. F1?;AG. (pace and (i)ht@ The Perception of (pace and (hape in the Con)enita$$y B$ind +efore and after Operation. CondonB %ethuen and Co. .aldrop" %. %itchell F1??+G. Comp$e6ity@ The -mer)in) (cience at the -d)e of Order and Chaos2 &ew *orkB Simon and Schuster. .ei6enbaum" :oseph F1?=;G. Computer Power and Human Reason2 &ew *orkB .. H. 2reeman and Company. .ei6enbaum" :oseph F1?>;G. <The .est Interview.< Interview by %arion Cong. *est F:anuary 1?" 1?>;G. .hite" :ohn F1?=+G. The Birth and Re+irth of Pictoria$ (pace2 &ew *orkB Harper and $ow. .inner" Cangdon F1?>;G. The *ha$e and the Reactor@ A (earch for =imits in an A)e of Hi)h Techno$o)y2 ChicagoB !niversity o Chicago #ress. Ra3onc" Arthur F1??1G. Catchin) the =i)ht@ The -ntwined History of =i)ht and 3ind2 &ew *orkB 9antam.

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