Category: Technology
-
Theological ‘Lock In’ | I Am Not A Gadget | Bad Faith [3]
[ Lock In [1] ] [ Lock In [2] ] Finally got my hands on Lanier’s book. Been devouring it like a good doughnut. In the last post I explained how Sartre sets up this paradox: we are what we are, but precisely part of our being is that we are not simply what we are. Having…
-
Theological ‘Lock In’ | I Am Not A Gadget | Bad Faith [2]
[ Lock In [1] ] In the previous post I raised the idea of technological developments giving rise to ‘lock in.’ Gadgets do not evolve in the organic sense ‘free’ that we might imagine: because of protocols and standardisation (think USB / railway gauges / HTML / Lego) their evolution is guided along particular lines.…
-
Theological ‘Lock In’ | I Am Not A Gadget | Bad Faith [1]
One of my favourite podcasts is Material World – a science review from the BBC. In a recent episode, Jaron Lanier discussed his recently published manifesto: You Are Not A Gadget. I’ve ordered it, but not read it yet, but was very much taken by one line of thought he introduced in the interview –…
-
Alan Turing: Can Machines Think? | Third Way
I’ve a short piece on Alan Turing in this month’s Third Way. If you don’t already subscribe, you should. One of the key strands of Turing’s thinking was on whether a machine could think like a human. After World War 1, where men had been treated like disposable fighting machines, and World War 2, where…
-
Avatar | The Problem With 3D | Life Through a Lens
I’ve enjoyed seeing Avatar – most recently at a very late night showing at the BFI Imax cinema. It’s not brilliantly plotted or scripted, but a great spectacle nonetheless. However, I found myself focusing on a problem that 3D cinema has compounded – especially in the immersive environment of Imax. Because the screen is so…