“Thou shalt not make a machine in the image of Man’s mind.”
This admonition serves as a warning to humanity in Frank Herbert’s Dune, his critically acclaimed science fiction magnum opus, at point in the story thousands of years after a great war between man and machine known as the Butlerian Jihad. In a later book in the series, God Emperor of Dune, a character elucidates the true nature of this commandment,
“The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines,” Leto said. “Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed.”
Though I am only moderately concerned with the prospect of a future war between man and machine I am much more interested in addressing the inherent moral danger in creating an inferior copy, or simulacrum, of Man’s mind. Wassily Kandinsky deals with this idea of simulacrum in his essay, “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, when he makes a statement concerning artists who endeavor to copy the style of a previous era,
“Such imitation resembles the antics of apes: externally a monkey resembles a human being; he will sit holding a book in front of his nose, turning over the pages with a thoughtful air, but his actions have no real significance”.
The simulacra of self many of us create on Twitter and Facebook are much closer to a calculated performance art piece than an any sort of authentic representation of who we are. With Frank Herbert’s fantastic admonition in mind we ought to be very careful as we manipulate the keyboards and camera’s at our disposal so as not to sub-contract the definition of who we are to a machine.
For instance, my friend pointed out to me that many people use Twitter as a place to speak with impunity in a way they would not face to face. The natural consequences that may follow insulting someone to their face fall away on Facebook. A couple days ago I received a Tweet with directions where to go to roast my friends. Truly, the Internet has provided an outlet for anyone to get their 15-minutes at the expense of everyone else. And herein is the moral danger, a lack of consequences and accountability.
Despite the separation of my digital self and the real world a couple weeks ago the two collided. I Tweeted and within a few minutes I received a phone call from my Uncle. He was worried that I might be depressed due to the nature of my Tweet:
Bill Maher’s #1 Religulous quote: We learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it.11:02 PM Jun 25th from web
He reached past the simulcrum to try and touch the real person but like I told him, I wasn’t depressed I was just sharing something I liked from the movie. Like an ape reading a book my comment looked like something it was not. That fine point of distinction, between your digital self and the real world, may get lost on those who actually love you. To them, you are what you Tweet.
You are what You Tweet
This admonition serves as a warning to humanity in Frank Herbert’s Dune, his critically acclaimed science fiction magnum opus, at point in the story thousands of years after a great war between man and machine known as the Butlerian Jihad. In a later book in the series, God Emperor of Dune, a character elucidates the true nature of this commandment,
Though I am only moderately concerned with the prospect of a future war between man and machine I am much more interested in addressing the inherent moral danger in creating an inferior copy, or simulacrum, of Man’s mind. Wassily Kandinsky deals with this idea of simulacrum in his essay, “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, when he makes a statement concerning artists who endeavor to copy the style of a previous era,
The simulacra of self many of us create on Twitter and Facebook are much closer to a calculated performance art piece than an any sort of authentic representation of who we are. With Frank Herbert’s fantastic admonition in mind we ought to be very careful as we manipulate the keyboards and camera’s at our disposal so as not to sub-contract the definition of who we are to a machine.
For instance, my friend pointed out to me that many people use Twitter as a place to speak with impunity in a way they would not face to face. The natural consequences that may follow insulting someone to their face fall away on Facebook. A couple days ago I received a Tweet with directions where to go to roast my friends. Truly, the Internet has provided an outlet for anyone to get their 15-minutes at the expense of everyone else. And herein is the moral danger, a lack of consequences and accountability.
Despite the separation of my digital self and the real world a couple weeks ago the two collided. I Tweeted and within a few minutes I received a phone call from my Uncle. He was worried that I might be depressed due to the nature of my Tweet:
He reached past the simulcrum to try and touch the real person but like I told him, I wasn’t depressed I was just sharing something I liked from the movie. Like an ape reading a book my comment looked like something it was not. That fine point of distinction, between your digital self and the real world, may get lost on those who actually love you. To them, you are what you Tweet.