So philosophy club was tonight. The subject turned out to be: How does technology change the way we think?

We started out by talking about the revolution of the printing press, and how the long oral traditions of the past (and the incredible ability for memorization that went with them) diminished, but the availability of information increased. Similarly, in our internet era, the amount of information that we have available to us is increasing, but the depth of our knowledge about it could be said to be decreasing (along with our already diminished capacity for memory). People of all ages were present, and the older generation tended to focus on the idea that given the sheer amount of information available, the skill that was needed was discernment, the ability to place this information into context and to tell good information from rubbish. They argued that our current young people did not have this discernment, and tended to give similar weights to information of vastly different quality. They also felt that young people, being so wrapped up in their technology, were becoming insular and disconnected from reality and other people. Thirdly, they argued that young people had incredibly short attention spans, that they were used to everything coming easily, and that they had no space for stillness, memorization, and deep contemplation in their lives. One example was that it used to take perhaps a year to understand a particular mathematical equation, but that now nobody seemed to want to take a year to understand anything.

The younger generation (who didn't talk too much in the wider group discussion, but which had a much more in-depth discussion afterwards) seemed to think that while it might be true that our cadence of changing subjects was faster, and that we had a huge amount of information at hand, this did not necessarily foretell the end of human thought. It many ways our thought is just the same. Our emotions and needs our similar, our biology is pretty much unchanged. Information is more democratized--- while, as the older generation expressed, nothing replaces physically going to the Louvre and gazing at the paintings, people that never in their lives would have been able to go to the Louvre can now wander its hallways on the internet. The older generation seemed to think that the fact that information and travel was easy somehow cheapened it. I was reading about the adventures of Ralph A. Bagnold and his explorations of the desert, and he noted how it only took him a few weeks to travel by motor-car from Cairo to Petra, when it would have taken months by camel. He said that maybe the people who came by camel would think that it cheapened the experience to come by motor car, but that maybe in the future people could come by even quicker forms of transportation and that he would, in turn, feel that their experience was cheapened with respect to his journey by motor-car. So we young people thought that this nostalgia for when things were harder and fewer people could have them was on the one hand a universal feeling of older people in the face of advancing technology and access, and on the other hand a little bit elitist... they think that things are precious only when few people have done them, while we would prefer that the opportunity would be open to everyone, rich and poor, lazy and hardworking alike. But we did feel that in lieu of having a society where people no longer attempted difficult things, that we just had to attempt and conquer even more difficult and exotic things.... if the whole map has been filled in, if a grandma can circumnavigate the globe in a cruise ship.... instead of mourning the terra incognita that is now known, let's explore the bottoms of the sea, the depths of space! Since a mathematical equation that would have taken a year to understand can now be understood in a day using Wikipedia, let's press on to invent even more complicated math problems! Our generation also felt that the internet was just the opposite of isolating... as my Dad actually said recently, instead of a geographical village populated by our neighbors, we have a global village, populated with friends that we would have never have had the opportunity to meet, organized instead of by state or geography into communities of interest. These people share things with us that they might never have shared with anyone face-to-face. These communities free shy people who never speak up at philosophy meetings to become active members of forums or blog rings where people could hear and respond to their ideas. I don't think that the fact that I'm hanging out on Nutang at 11:24 pm instead of at a bar with my friends means that I'm insular or isolated. I don't think that my Nutang internet friends are less valuable than my IRL friends... in many cases I've known you longer and know more about you than those people that I just met face-to-face. It was just interesting.... my generation was much more hopeful and optimistic about the future. I completely understand what the older generation was saying... that we don't want to lose the old ways and that we want to keep knowledge of techniques and customs and think on things meaningfully and deeply instead of just tweeting them, but my generation sees the internet as a platform from which they can leap much higher into the stars than anyone ever would have been able to in the past.

I think the existence of the internet does cheapen some experiences. It is hard to say if the younger generation's appreciation of life is in proportion to that of the older generation's. While it's true that people who never would have had access to certain things can now see them, it's possible that the immediate availability is also hindering others from experiencing things fully...

In regards to socializing though, the internet is great for connecting people. I think my life would be a lot lonelier without it. Well, mine and many other introverts'. The internet is also a place to hide thoughts where people from my er... non-virtual life can't see them. :P
» randomjunk on 2013-02-06 05:55:12

RJ has this on lock. I think that there's a certain experience that just plain gives you more. The Internet opens so many doors, but then I think it's easier to lose appreciation for the things it shoes us. I can't remember the last time I was around someone who was taken back by a piece of art, or a photo taken in space.
» Unicornasaurus on 2013-02-06 09:32:27

you're both insular and isolated but not because you're on nutang all the time


it's because you're a geologist and went to brown o.o
» undisputed on 2013-02-06 10:18:02

BROWNIE
» undisputed on 2013-02-06 10:18:08

HIPPIE
» undisputed on 2013-02-06 10:18:12

btw i think its awesome you quote your dad like most people would quote some big name scholar
» undisputed on 2013-02-06 10:18:30

re:
You know when you're kids, people judge you less? Well, after I hit puberty, I realise that these buggers just cannot stop telling you how you should live your life, how they are of the same weight just before they were pregnant with their first child and all those stuff that you do not need to hear and stuff that you don't need their nose to be buried in. I really don't need to put up with these people just for the pittance they give out in their red packets and just because you're related by blood, they're not family.
» Nuttz on 2013-02-07 05:30:16

Steppenwolf says a lot of interesting stuff about that kind of nostalgia.

I'm not sure what I think. You can't have your cake and eat it to, but it's kind of like breeding rare breeds of chickens. For years, while the egg industry and the chicken meat industry focused on meat birds and egg birds, there was a group of dedicated individuals who preserved dual purpose chickens like the Rhode Island Red. While this group preserved these chickens out of nostalgia, they have now found them incredibly useful in bringing agriculture to developing nations. In a developing nation, keeping meat and egg birds would be too expensive, but a dual purpose bird does the trick. That's what I think of when I think of preserving tradition.
» jinyu on 2013-02-07 11:35:18

o_o that was a long ass comment pal
» undisputed on 2013-02-07 02:59:27

I think a lot of time that people spend thinking about this stuff could be better spent elsewhere. :D
» middaymoon on 2013-02-08 03:36:59

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