faculty clergy presentation

7/27/2019 Faculty Clergy Presentation

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How Notto Think About Technology

Technology as a mere

tool.

Technology as self-

contained.

Technology as anti-

cultural.


3/23

The Case of the Red Heifer

The Cow

http://www.redheifer.org

Numbers 19 The Purification of theUnclean

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and

unto Aaron, saying,

2This is the ordinance of the law which

the LORD hath commanded, saying,Speak unto the children of Israel, that

they bring thee a red heifer without spot,

wherein is no blemish, andupon which

never came yoke.

9 And a man that is clean shall gather up

the ashes of the heifer, and lay them upwithout the camp in a clean place, and it

shall be kept for the congregation of the

children of Israel for a water of

separation: it is a purification for sin.

Clyde Lodt, rancher and Pentecostal

Minister: The main thrust of this

project isthe restoration of the land

of Israel and the restoration of the

souls of men.


4/23

http://www.prophetech.com
http://www.prophetech.com/http://www.prophetech.com/


5/23

Leon Kass: Wisdom of Repugnance

Repugnance is the emotional expression of

deep wisdom, beyond reasons power fully to

articulate it.We intuit and feel, immediately

and without argument, the violation of thingsthat we rightfully hold dear.Repugnance

may be the only voice left that speaks to

defend the central core of our humanity.

Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how

to shudder.


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Kass: Cloning represents a giant step

toward transforming procreation into

manufacturetoward the increasing

depersonalization of the process of

generation and, increasingly, toward the

production of human children as

artifacts


7/23

Kass: Cloning creates serious issues

of identity and individuality.


8/23

Has biology already been

enclosed within the realm of

technology?

We are heading towards a

world run by machines with an

intelligence far superior to that

of an individual human.We

really need to clamp down on

the party-pooper Neos of this

world and get into the future as

soon as we cana future in

which we can be part of a

Matrix system, which is morallyfar superior to our Neolithic

morals of today.

Kevin Warwick


9/23

Richard Dawkins

River Out of Eden

The machine code of the genes isuncannily computer-likeLife is just

bytes and bytes of information

Weare survival machines

programmed to propagate the digital

database that did the programming.


10/23

Sherry Turkle

The Second Self

The computer is an

evocative object that is

good to think with. It is a

new mind that is not yet a

mind. A new object, betwixt

and between, equally

shrouded in superstition as

well as science. The

computer raises questionsabout where we stand in

nature and where we stand

in the world of artifact.


11/23

The Early History of the PC:

A Mixture of Technology, Fantasy, and Religious Mythos

Machines of Loving GraceRichard Brautigan

I like to think

of a cybernetic meadow

where animals and computers

live together in mutuallyprogramming harmony

like pure water

touching clear sky

I like to think

of a cybernetic forestfilled with pines and electronics

where deer stroll peacefully

past computers

as if they were flowers

with spinning blossoms

The 1960s Counter Culture Stewart Brand and The Whole Earth

Catalog

The Zen-Taoist impulse of San

Francisco

Dreams of a cybernetic paradise

New Age religious groups

Apples 1984 Commercial


12/23

The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as

comfortably in the circuits of a digital

computer or the gears of a cycle oftransmission as he does at the top of a

mountain or in the petals of the flower.

Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle

Maintenance

You talk about deus ex machina, well, were

talking about deus in machina. You start by

thinking theres a god in the box. And then youfind there isnt anything in the box. You put the

god in the box.

Lee Felsenstein, founder Resource One and

Community Memory


13/23

I have always wanted to make a

mind. Create something like that. It is

the most exciting thing you could do.

The most important thing anyone

could do.

Roger Schank, AI researcher

To put it bluntly, we are now coming to

realize that humans and the machines they

create are continuous and that the same

conceptual schemes that help explain theworkings of the brain also explain the

workings of a thinking machine.

Bruce Mazlish, The Fourth Discontinuity

Several present day AI researchers at

MIT grew up with a family tradition that

they are descendents of Rabbi Loew,

the creator of the Golem

Sherry Turkle, The Second Self


14/23

Rodney Brooks

Flesh and Machines

I believe myself and my children

all to be mere machines.

Automatons at large in the

universe. Every person I meet is

also a machinea big bag of skin

full of biomolecules interactingaccording to describable and

knowable rules.When our robots

improve enoughand when we

humans look at them with the

same lack of prejudice that wecredit humans, then too we will

break out mental

barrierdifferentiating ourselves

from them.


15/23

Evolution has been seen as

a billion-year drama that led

inexorably to its grandestcreation: human intelligence.

The emergence in the early

twenty-first century of a new

form of intelligence on Earththat can compete with, and

ultimately significantly

exceed, human intelligence

will be a development of

greater import than any of the

events that have shaped

human history.


16/23

Cyborgs

Cybernetic + Organism

A human being who is linked to one

or more mechanical devices upon

which some of his vital physiological

functions depend.

Our new technologically-

enmeshed relationships

oblige us to ask to what

extent we ourselves have

become cyborgs,

transgressive mixtures ofbiology, technology, and

code.

Sherry Turkle, Life on the

Screen


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Extropian Principle # 4. Intelligent Technology: Applying science and technology creatively to

transcend natural limits imposed by our biological heritage, culture, and environment. Seeing

technologyas an effective means towards improvement of life.


21/23

Cyberspace. A consensual

hallucination.A graphic

representation of data abstracted

from the banks of every computer

in the human system.Lines oflight ranged in the non space of

the mind.

William Gibson

Neuromancer

Cyberspace, though born of a war

technology, opens up a space for

collective restoration, and for peace.

As screens are dissolving, our future

can only take on a luminous

dimension! Welcome to the NewWorld.

Nicole Stenger

Mind is a Leaking Rainbow


22/23

Souls In Silicon

Bit by bit our brain is replaced by

electronic equivalentsEventuallyeverything has been replaced by

manufactured parts. No vestige of

our original body remains, but our

thoughts and awareness continue.

We call this processthe

downloadingof a human mind into amachine. After downloading, our

personality is a pattern impressed on

electronic hardware.Ultimately our

thinking procedures would be totally

liberated from any traces of our

original bodyThe immensities of

cyberspace will be teeming with very

unhuman disembodied superminds.

Hans Moravec


23/23

Computation seems almost a theological process. Kevin Kelly

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