Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines

by Steve Talbott

Overview

"Self-forgetfulness is the reigning temptation of the technological era. This is why we so readily give our assent to the absurd proposition that a computer can add two plus two, despite the obvious fact that it can do nothing of the sort—not if we have in mind anything remotely resembling what we do when we add numbers. In the computer's case, the mechanics of addition involve no motivation, no consciousness of the task, no mobilization of the will, no metabolic activity, no imagination. And its performance brings neither the satisfaction of accomplishment nor the strengthening of practical skills and cognitive capacities."

In this insightful book, author Steve Talbott, software programmer and technical writer turned researcher and editor for The Nature Institute, challenges us to step back and take an objective look at the technology driving our lives. At a time when 65 percent of American consumers spend more time with their PCs than they do with their significant others, according to a recent study, Talbott illustrates that we're forgetting one important thing—our Selves, the human spirit from which technology stems.

Whether we're surrendering intimate details to yet another database, eschewing our physical communities for online social networks, or calculating our net worth, we freely give our power over to technology until, he says, "we arrive at a computer's-eye view of the entire world of industry, commerce, and society at large...an ever more closely woven web of programmed logic."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492025610
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/09/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

After a several-year stint in organic farming, Steve Talbott began working in the high-tech industry in 1981 as a technical writer and software programmer. His 1995 book, The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst, was named one of the "Best Books of 1995" by UNIX Review and was chosen by the library journal Choice for its 1996 list of "Outstanding Academic Books." In the years since then Steve has produced over 165 issues of the highly regarded online newsletter, NetFuture - Technology and Human Responsibility (http://netfuture.org), from which the contents of this current book are drawn. In a New York Times feature article about Steve's work, NetFuture was termed "a largely undiscovered national treasure."

Since 1998 Steve has been a Senior Researcher at The Nature Institute in Ghent, New York (http://natureinstitute.org). He is currently working on issues relating to the establishment of a new, qualitative science (http://qual.natureinstitute.org).

Table of Contents

Introduction; What's Ahead; Credits; Part I: Technology, Nature, and the Human Prospect; Chapter 1: The Deceiving Virtues of Technology; 1.1 Devices of the Mind; 1.2 The Man of Many Devices; 1.3 Balance and Separation; 1.4 Reckoning with the Scoundrel; 1.5 Reversals; 1.6 Triumph of the Contrivance; 1.7 Rousing Ourselves; Chapter 2: Hold a Blossom to the Light; 2.1 On Reading One's Environment; 2.2 The Powers of Recognition; 2.3 Puzzling Knowledge; 2.4 Seeking a New Balance; 2.5 The Thrill of Cutting Down Trees; 2.6 Don't Bemoan the Loss of Old Skills; Chapter 3: Toward an Ecological Conversation; 3.1 We Converse to Become Ourselves; 3.2 Permission and Responsibility; 3.3 Approaching Mystery; 3.4 Where Does the Wild Live?; 3.5 Toward Creative Responsibility; 3.6 A Word Unasked For; Part II: Extraordinary Lives; Chapter 4: Can Technology Make the Handicapped Whole?; 4.1 Hearing with More Than Ears; 4.2 Lost Sight, Second Sight; 4.3 Dangers; 4.4 Attending to the World with New Eyes; 4.5 The Human Being as a Developing Potential; 4.6 Saving Illnesses; 4.7 Addendum: The Living and the Dead; 4.8 From And There Was Light; Chapter 5: The Many Voices of Destiny; 5.1 Falling Apart, Coming Together; 5.2 At Harvard; 5.3 Enjoying Life; 5.4 Listening; 5.5 Epilogue: Tinkering with Ourselves; 5.6 On the New Eugenics; Chapter 6: On Forgetting to Wear Boots; 6.1 Dignity and Laughter; 6.2 Trying to Communicate; 6.3 Gift-Bearers; 6.4 Serving the Other; 6.5 Of Accident and Destiny; 6.6 A Parent's Disconcerting Revelation; Part III: From Information to Education; Chapter 7: Why Is the Moon Getting Farther Away?; 6.1 The Loss of Significance; 6.2 Living in a Virtual World; 6.3 Learning the Language of Horses; 6.4 A Chickadee Lesson; Chapter 8: Failure to Connect; 8.1 Looking for the Benefits; 8.2 Remembering the Alternatives; Chapter 9: Educational Provocations; Chapter 10: Three Notes: On Baby Walkers, Video Games, and Sex; 10.1 Beware the Baby Walker; 10.2 Pianists and Video Game Players; 10.3 Sex, the Internet, and Educational Reform; Chapter 11: Who's Killing Higher Education?(Or Is It Suicide?); 11.1 When Business Embraces the Academy; 11.2 Buying an Education More Cheaply; 11.3 The Credentialed Society; 11.4 Toward Greater Standardization; 11.5 Becoming Qualified; 11.6 Nothing to Teach; Part IV: On Socializing Our Machines; Chapter 12: Conversing with Ella; Chapter 13: Flesh and Machines:The Mere Assertions of Rodney Brooks; 13.1 Searching for the Bottom; 13.2 Order and Form; 13.3 Losing Consciousness; 13.4 Turnabout Is Fair Play; Chapter 14: From HAL to Kismet; 14.1 The Human Response; 14.2 How Do You Simulate Life?; 14.3 Invisible Authors; 14.4 Learning from Kismet; Chapter 15: Invisible Tools or Emotionally Supportive Pals?; 15.1 We Need to Recognize Our Own Assumptions; 15.2 Complementary Errors; 15.3 The Computer in Context; Part V: On Mechanizing Society; Chapter 16: Evil; Chapter 17: The Threat of Technology That Works Well; 17.1 Press "1" for Frustration; 17.2 An Information Arms Race; 17.3 Do Cell Phones Make Us Safer?; 17.4 Will Lie-Detecting Software Make Us More Trustworthy?; 17.5 The Automobile; 17.6 Being Positive by Being Negative; Chapter 18: The Ideal of Ubiquitous Technology; 18.1 Digital Servants Everywhere; 18.2 There Are No Solutions; 18.3 Not Solutions, But a Strengthening of the "I"; 18.4 Automating on Principle; 18.5 A Strengthened Inner Activity; Chapter 19: Privacy in an Age of Data; 19.1 The Life of a Vibrant Neighborhood; 19.2 The Privacy of Community; Chapter 20: A Taste for Number Magic; 20.1 The Importance of Capitalism; 20.2 Flights of Abstraction; 20.3 All You Need Is Numbers; 20.4 Cutting Ourselves Off from Change; 20.5 Beyond the Gambling Hall; Chapter 21: The Internet: Reflections on Our Present Discontents; 21.1 Vacant Efficiency; 21.2 Personalizing Our Transactions; 21.3 Movable Places; 21.4 The Virtue of Friction in the Landscape; 21.5 Programming Levity; 21.6 A Hope Beyond Technology; Bibliography; About the Author;