In his essay "On Low-Tech Cyborgs", David Hess brings up several points and ideas that seem to prove true in society today. He states, " The future, so it is said, promises an eve deeper relationship with the machine." This has been proven evidently true over the last few decades. Humans are evermore dependent on technology and machines. At first, technology just improved efficiency and productivity. It helped make tasks that were necessary to survive or thrive easier. Plows increased agricultural production. Steamboats increased trade and interstate relationships. But then, technology became one with the mind. People became addicted to it. We "needed" it. People mentally cannot survive without technology. We "need" our cell phones, our computers, our TVs. We "need" our cars, our lights, our banking system. What would we do if we cannot drive to work, if we cannot see in the dark, if we cannot talk on the phone? How would people ever survive? How did people 200 years ago survive?
It has even gotten WORSE if that's possible. Not only are people mentally dependent on technology, some of us are PHYSICALLY dependent on it. These people can't physically LIVE with technology, without pacemakers, without insulin pumps, without medicine. THIS is the extent to which people have become dependent on technology; they wouldn't be able to live without it no matter how much they wanted to. So knowing this, we ask ourselves, is technology a good thing or a bad thing? We continue to develop it but it destroys society. We need it to survive, but if we use it, we become dependent on it. The growth of technology has trade-offs. So we question, is it worth it? Is it worth losing society as we have known it so we can live easier lives and faster lives? What's the point of life if we don't have true relationships? Does true love even exist anymore?
In the story, Hess also says lucid dreaming is "the low-tech version of virtual realities." Is this true? Dreams are completely natural. But have our bodies trained themselves to give us lucid dreams, in which we are aware we are dreaming? Is it the same as virtual reality? I think not. I don't know much about lucid dreams but I believe them to be all biological and not low-tech versions of virtual realities. After reading this, I would like to experience a lucid dream. I don't dream often.
In the second paragraph, you claim that physical dependency is "worse" than mental dependency but I disagree. I could see that being mentally dependent on technology could be bad but I don't necessarily see a problem in physical dependency on technology. Considering people with disabilities, technology facilitates or even saves those disabled people's lives. After all, physical dependency means they have physical disadvantages and I do not have the slightest intention taking those technologies away from them.
ReplyDeleteI have experienced a lucid dream, and, in my version, you can control what happens in your dream. It's like making a movie in real time that plays literally right before your eyes. Having experienced this, I do agree with Hess when he says that it's a "low-tech" version of virtual reality: "low-tech" is used to describe everything from a candle to a hand-crank flashlight, so technically a lucid dream is a type of virtual reality.
ReplyDeleteSide Note: In order to dream, you must partially wake up during the REM cycle of sleeping, which typically happens ~2 hours after you fall asleep. Take an extended nap, partially wake up but stay in bed, and you should dream. It may take a few tries but it works; that's how I lucid dream.
I would have to agree with you. I also do not think that lucid dreams are"the low tech version of virtual realities" in any sense. I do think that relying on technology is bad in cases like the people who live their lives on the computer or on their video games and the people who lose actual human connections, but do you think that it is necessarily bad that we have technology such as pacemakers to keep us alive?
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To your question in the last paragraph. I really do believe Lucid Dreams are a "low tech" form of virtual reality. I actually practice having lucid dreams and can tell you once you are consciously aware that your are dreaming I have the capability to actually control the world around me in whatever way i desire. In the near future i plan to start blogging about lucid dreams so check it out, ill be keeping a dream log. To prevent hindsight bias I write down what I will attempt to control or alter in the dream so when something special happens I can more accurately deem that i was under control rather than it just happened randomly. To give you an idea of how incredible lucid dreams are one night i went into sleep wishing that when i realized i was dreaming i would fly away like a bird, and I have been able to make it happen multiple times and can say it is an incredible feeling. To your question on have our bodies trained themselves to lucid dream? No I believe its natural and that humans could do it at any point over our modern evolution it just merely takes the effort of someone to carry it out. Have you never realized that you were in a dream or tried to wake yourself up from a dream?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Method's comment earlier. Think about the physical dependency. It's good that we have technology that can prolong life and make it better health wise for some. All these things you're talking about experiencing, others wouldn't be able to without technology. So yes we are dependent on technology and we aren't able to sense as much as we might be able to without it, but isn't it worth it?
ReplyDeleteOkay okay. You guys got me thinking. Now I realize that mental dependence is WORSE than physical dependence. But I also think it is bad to be physically dependent on technology. But mental dependence is more controllable and it shows people's lack of self-control when they indulge in technology too much. Thanks for all the comments on the lucid dreams. It sounds like it would be a great experience and I will have to try it some time using the tips you guys gave me. But I still don't think it is a "low tech" from of virtual reality. I think it's all NATURAL doesn't use technology to occur. You don't need a machine to have a lucid dream. UNLESS having lucid dreams IS part of us becoming cyborgs. E.g. if people did not have lucid dreams 1000 years ago, I WOULD say humans have evolved and that lucid dreams ARE "low-tech" forms of virtual reality. Thanks for all the input.
ReplyDelete"Is it worth losing society as we have known it so we can live easier lives and faster lives?"
ReplyDeleteI had an interesting thought-ish when I read this sentence. I imagined someone physically clinging to to old ways of doing things trying to catch them as he fell past them. It felt odd.
This is sort of a loaded question. Is the old society the only one worth having? Why should any new form of society be rejected just on the grounds of being different?
It is interesting how you view the physical dependency aspect. If you look at the culture as a whole and think how people are requiring technology to live, then you would be inclined to want to shove off technology just as you said. I don't want to require this to live, that is going too far.
But look what happens if you look at it a different way: on a personal level. One of my good friends developed diabetes in high school and he now wears an insulin pump. Should we allow him to have that, or let him die because he is making society dependent on technology?
No one would keep him from having such an easily accessible technology that saves his life, just to keep an old version of society. It is easy to forget things like this when you look at something from the impersonal, all of society view point. He doesn't harm our society, he helps make a new version of the old society where people don't have to die in childhood from manageable diseases. The imagined idea a cyborg is very inhuman and unemotional, but my friend was able to have just as much of a friend relationship with me as anyone else.
On lucid dreaming: I have almost done it before, but i always wake myself up while trying to do it. And lately I haven't been remembering any of my dreams, so I haven't been able to try.
Is it low-tech virtual reality? It seems more like NO-tech virtual reality. It doesn't use any technology, and it isn't reality. Theoretically it is the same thing as playing a video game, but your asleep mind is the controller and the computer that runs the game, while your aware mind is the game designer and player.
Well I know what you're saying about the insulin pump. My dad also has diabetes and he uses one to. I think this comes down to diet. But one of the types of diabetes (I don't know which one) is genetic, for which I think an insulin pump is appropriate. For the other type, I think we should be trying to prevent it by living healthier lifestyles, and I think this sedentary lifestyle is due to technology. So it's like a big cycle. Technology causes that type of diabetes, and then people need technology to live with it. I'm not saying a new society is bad; I just think we shouldn't let go of it. Technology seems to be running all over us.
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