Re: Fw: NYT on the Future (and the liberal professoriat)
Brian McAndrews wrote: [snip] Progress Without People By: Russell Mokhiber January 4, 1999 MIT Professor Noam Chomsky makes the point that if you serve power, power rewards you with respectability. If you work to undermine power, whether by political analysis or moral critique, you are "reviled, imprisoned, driven into the desert." "It's as close to a historical truism as you can find," Chomsky says. Let's test Chomsky's theory of power and respectability with the case of [snip] ...Noam Chomsky. Now let us deconstruct famous men! \brad mccormick -- Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
Ray, I've been lurking on future-work for years, and love and often agree with your thought provoking and passionate posts. In regards to this one, though, I would like to point our that there is no such thing as a "typical 16 year old adolescent", any more than there is such thing as a typical southerner, African-American, or Mainer. Prejudice against young people, and its expression, seems to be acceptable even among "sophisticated" persons but should be no more so than prejudice against any group of people. A good consciousness raising book on the topic of adolescent prejudice, and its destructive results, is Scapegoat Generation- America's War on Adolescents, by Mike Males, 1996, Common Courage Press. Tom Karnofsky Sounds like your typical 16 year old adolescent. Any parent who has gone through that should be willing to grow up themselves or quit complaining when their kid explains the world to them.Whether it is my kid or the local minister, rabbi, mulah, REH "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." wrote: Brian McAndrews wrote: The following book review presents another view (and saves me a helluva lot of typing!). Brian McAndrews -- -- Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman 1976 [snip] In my opinion, _Computer Power and Human Reason_ remains a challenge to our technistic way of thinking. It is as relevant today as when it was written. The review snipped here doesn't really do the book justice. As far as WTO is concerned, Weisenbaum wrote in the book that: By coming along in the nick of time to process data the way clerks were used to processing it, but when the *quantity* of data exceeded clerical capacity, the computer enabled the existing bureaucratic structures of society to survive when otherwise they would have either collapsed or been transformed. --If by "revolution" one understands a change in the social relations between persons -- the computer has been ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL FORCES FOR SOCIAL REACTION IN THE 20TH CENTURY. His chapter on "incomprehensible programs" and their social impact is highly admonitory. His ending shows the difference between judgment and calculation: I hope that, as the discipline of computer science will mature also, so that, whatever computer scientists do, THEY WILL THINK ABOUT IT, SO THAT THOSE WHO COME AFTER US SHALL NOT WISH WE HAD NOT DONE IT. This is an excellent, and highly readable book, both for lay persons and for techies. \brad mccormick -- Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
Tom, Thanks for your compliments. I would like to point out a couple of things from my own discipline. There is such a thing as stylistic convention. French Style is a coherency that is different from German or Italian. Before the abuse of "convention" and its subversion into a primitive scientific provenciality now called racism, people understood that groups, eras, ages and even human stages were good ways to comprehend reality and make some order of it. The trick was to understand that it was a convention and not applicable to the exception. Also the "convention" was something that could be described but basically fit no one exactly because it was based upon a general view. It was in that spirit that I made my comment about adolescents. We might consider that one of the elements of adolescence is heightened perceptions within a limited life experience. We might also consider that they are in the process of growing which makes that task subvert almost everything else to the achievement of its goals. This is not a crazy time but it can become so if it is not controled by wisdom and experience. It is also not criminal although criminals tend to have the same self absorbtion but at later times in their lives. It is not criminal but can become so, as in the murders in American schools of late.I tend to believe that children and adolescents need to be given the greatest latitude while being protected from their lack of knowledge and the experience that real knowledge is built upon.I also know that "latitude" depends upon the ability of the parent to exercise the kind of protective control within an attitude of benevolence and wisdom. It is not wrong for 16 year olds to be 16 and adolescent. It is normal. You can take any portion of my post and create your own world but that is not the world that I responded to and from. Consider: To rephrase what I said, the problem is with adults operating from the same limited experience or use of experience (that fits adolescence) that we are faced with the delemma that "widens worlds and rips minds." Consciousness is the only process that has any hope of manifesting a humane future. What we do that limits consciousness, and its evolution within the individual, is like what happens in the limited view of the adolescent whose intractibility can create a life threatening situation due to inexperience and an unwillingness to be take advice. That is why I brought the spiritual folks in at the end of my post. They seem to be particularly effected with the "way the truth and the life" and are convinced that their local knowledge will save the world and if the world rejects it then they can just "go to hell."But that choice makes the rejector a murderer and worse and therefore deserving of any punishment the locals wish to inflict. Sounds adolescent to me. THE world only began with the writing of their book. Not THEIR world but THE world began a few thousand years ago. I think neither they nor the local adolescent deserves to be followed as long as they manifest such provenciality. Do you? Regards, REH Tom Karnofsky wrote: Ray, I've been lurking on future-work for years, and love and often agree with your thought provoking and passionate posts. In regards to this one, though, I would like to point our that there is no such thing as a "typical 16 year old adolescent", any more than there is such thing as a typical southerner, African-American, or Mainer. Prejudice against young people, and its expression, seems to be acceptable even among "sophisticated" persons but should be no more so than prejudice against any group of people. A good consciousness raising book on the topic of adolescent prejudice, and its destructive results, is Scapegoat Generation- America's War on Adolescents, by Mike Males, 1996, Common Courage Press. Tom Karnofsky Sounds like your typical 16 year old adolescent. Any parent who has gone through that should be willing to grow up themselves or quit complaining when their kid explains the world to them.Whether it is my kid or the local minister, rabbi, mulah, REH My complete post: REH It seems that it still comes down to whether the chip in the brain to record all of life's experiences constitutes consciousness. Since I do not believe that it does, it follows that nothing put into any linear pattern can ever describe or encapsulate reality. What does this have to do with the future and future writers, thinkers, etc. ? We are still only thinking as far as our hands and literate minds function. That is inadaquate for a serious discussion or exploration of the universe, world society, the environment, any world culture, a family or even an individual. Seems that the mechanistic theories are alive and well and as destructive as ever. We can blame bureacracy but the problem is the linear rule of science and Western thought. As a musician, the rules of thermodynamics
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
The following book review presents another view (and saves me a helluva lot of typing!). Brian McAndrews Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman 1976 REVIEWED BY: Amy Stout November 1996 Joseph Weizenbaum, a professor of computer science at MIT, has participated in the development of Artificial Intelligence since its conception in the late 1950's. His most famous accomplishments are SLIP, a list-processing language, and ELIZA, a natural-language processing system. Computer Power and Human Reason is a collection of essays discussing the technical roots of computer systems, and addressing some philosophical questions inspired by mankind's entrance into the world of machines. Perhaps the most curious thing about Mr. Weizenbaum's book is its candid ambivalence towards computer technology. From a man who pioneered the use of the computer chip as a fabulously powerful tool, it is strange to hear doubt and questioning about the purposes of his research, and the validity of its results. Mr. Weizenbaum says his book is an explanation of a philosophical problem that presented itself when he created ELIZA, the natural-language processing system that imitated a Rogerian psychologist and communicated in a way that practically sounded human. He compares his philosophical crisis to a problem encountered by Michael Polanyi, professor of physical chemistry at the Victoria University of Manchester. Polanyi was thrown into an intellectual muddle after Nicolai Bukharin, theoretician of the Russian Communist Party, asserted that socialism would eliminate the need for pure science, and only practical matters would be addressed by the enlightened communist scientists of the future. To Polanyi, disregarding pure science would enslave man to the need to create only for the sake of production and efficiency, and would destroy any opportunity for free thought. Polanyi feared that Bukharin's prediction would inspire a solely mechanistic view of man. Weizenbaum had a similar experience shortly after offering ELIZA to the scientific community. Computer Power and Human Reason is Weizenbaum's exploration of his own misgivings about technology and Artificial Intelligence. It is more philosophical than technical, but offers a few detailed chapters that provide a foundation for the person who is not a computer scientist. Weizenbaum created ELIZA in order to demonstrate natural-language processing in computer systems. Though ELIZA was capable of carrying on a human-like conversation, Weizenbaum never intended for ELIZA to be a substitute for human interaction. He was appalled when psychiatrists suggested that the program might be an acceptable substitute for human therapy. Even Weizenbaum's own secretary, who was intimately aware that ELIZA was a machine, conversed with the computer on a number of personal matters. Horrified, Weizenbaum began work on the philosophical problem presented by the mechanization of human characteristics and talents. From the beginning of the book, Weizenbaum insists that science is only one approach to understanding the universe. At one time, art and literature were considered essential tools of making sense of mankind's place in the world. Now, science is the only legitimate method of understanding, (a mistake made by Bacon when he equated rationality with equality), and art has been relegated to the ignoble role of entertainment. We are obsessed with scientific procedure and thoughts, insists Weizenbaum, and he adds, "We can count, but we are rapidly forgetting how to say what is worth counting and why." (p.16) The first half of Computer Power and Human Reason is devoted to explaining the technical side of computer science. Weizenbaum goes into a lengthy explanation of tools and their purposes, and establishes the computer as a modern day arrow--as a tool and an extension of man's power. He then explains how a computer works mechanically, examining our notions of the brilliance of computers by revealing how clumsy they are, and how awkward the mechanics of computer computation. Computers simply operate quickly, he says, but not with much grace. In the second half of the book, Weizenbaum looks at common applications of computer power such as computer models in psychology, natural-language, and artificial intelligence. These chapters are scarcely technical, but address theoretical and philosophical issues. Chapter eight, devoted to the subject of artificial intelligence, criticizes the scientific community (the Artificial Intelligensia) for blindly pursuing the nebulous path of technological progress. Weizenbaum demands that the community consider ethical and moral issues associated with the development of machines that can imitate human behavior. The real question for the Artificial Intelligensia, he says, is not what computers will be able to do, but what we should allow
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
A few veterans of this list will remember me trying to get a book club started. I suggested reading David Noble's Progress Without People: In Defense of Luddism. Noble argues that luddites smashed machines because their children were starving. Would you do likewise? I heard a women on T.V. last night, a protestor in Seattle, worrying about feeding her children. She lost her job because of downsizing, globalization, WTO ... blah, blah, blah Noble's an interesting academic. He gets fired because of what he writes, says and does. Here is a brief bio. Brian McAndrews Progress Without People By: Russell Mokhiber January 4, 1999 MIT Professor Noam Chomsky makes the point that if you serve power, power rewards you with respectability. If you work to undermine power, whether by political analysis or moral critique, you are "reviled, imprisoned, driven into the desert." "It's as close to a historical truism as you can find," Chomsky says. Let's test Chomsky's theory of power and respectability with the case of David Noble. Noble is a historian of corporate control over our lives and institutions - -- from technology to universities. Forces of Production (Knopf, 1984), for example, is a detailed history of the automation of the metalworking industry. In that book, Noble shows how technology, in its design and deployment, reflects class and power relations between workers and owners. Noble started out his academic career in 1978 at MIT. His first book, America by Design (Knopf, 1977), focused on the rise of the science-based industries, the electrical and chemical industry, and how universities essentially became corporate research centers for these new industries. Noble believed that corporations should be kept off of university campuses. In the late 1970s, he wrote a series of articles for the Nation magazine, including two classics, "Ivory Tower Goes Plastic" and "Business Goes Back to College." Then in the early 1980s, Noble wrote a series of articles in praise of Luddism for the now defunct journal Democracy. (That series has since been pulled together in book form (Progress Without People, Between the Lines Press, Toronto, 1995). In addition, while at MIT, he teamed up with Ralph Nader and Al Meyerhoff and started an organization called the National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest. MIT, a model of education in the corporate interest, was not pleased. In 1983, MIT fired Noble. "It was a political firing," Noble told us. "I sued MIT in 1986." After five years of litigation, Noble forced MIT to make public the documents shedding light on the firing. "I got all of the documents and turned them over to the American Historical Association, which then reviewed them for a year and then condemned MIT for the firing," Noble said. Next stop: Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian wanted Noble to be a curator for an exhibit on automated technology. Noble went to Washington for two years and produced an exhibit highly critical of technology. He includes a hammer used by the Luddites in the 1800s to smash machines in England. George Lucas donates robots R2D2 and C3PO from the first Star Wars movie. Noble calls the exhibit "Automation Madness: Boys and Their Toys," in which he documents a history of resistance to automation beginning in the 1800s. Not what the Smithsonian had in mind. They too fired Noble. Most people think that the Smithsonian is a public institution. It started out that way, but has slowly been taken over by big corporate interests. When Noble arrived at the Smithsonian in 1983, he figured he would have a budget to work on projects. No such luck. "What I had to do was go out and hustle -- to the National Association of Manufacturers, to the Chamber of Commerce, to various companies, to get money to put on exhibits," Noble said. "At that time, the fundraiser for the National Museum of American History was the wife of the president of the National Association of Manufacturers." Noble then spent five years at Drexel -- protected with tenure -- and then headed North to the University of York at Toronto, where he is also protected by tenure. Noble doesn't use e-mail or the Internet, but last year after The Nation magazine turned down an article he wrote called "Digital Diploma Mills," he published it and two subsequent pieces on the Internet . The articles describe how corporations are using digital technologies to gain control over university course content. He believes that the Internet can be a useful way to disseminate information, but not to teach students. "You can't educate over the Internet, because education is an interpersonal process," he says. And he laughs when asked whether the Internet will level the playing field between activists and their corporate adversaries. "Have you noticed that -- any leveling the playing field?" he asked
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
Brian McAndrews wrote: The following book review presents another view (and saves me a helluva lot of typing!). Brian McAndrews Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman 1976 [snip] In my opinion, _Computer Power and Human Reason_ remains a challenge to our technistic way of thinking. It is as relevant today as when it was written. The review snipped here doesn't really do the book justice. As far as WTO is concerned, Weisenbaum wrote in the book that: By coming along in the nick of time to process data the way clerks were used to processing it, but when the *quantity* of data exceeded clerical capacity, the computer enabled the existing bureaucratic structures of society to survive when otherwise they would have either collapsed or been transformed. --If by "revolution" one understands a change in the social relations between persons -- the computer has been ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL FORCES FOR SOCIAL REACTION IN THE 20TH CENTURY. His chapter on "incomprehensible programs" and their social impact is highly admonitory. His ending shows the difference between judgment and calculation: I hope that, as the discipline of computer science will mature also, so that, whatever computer scientists do, THEY WILL THINK ABOUT IT, SO THAT THOSE WHO COME AFTER US SHALL NOT WISH WE HAD NOT DONE IT. This is an excellent, and highly readable book, both for lay persons and for techies. \brad mccormick -- Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
Hi Brad, As usual I find your analysis mostly cogent and challenging. Perhaps you can help me here: When the word "transcendental" is as trendy as "algorithmic" there will be some hope for a future. I'm familiar with the "Transcendentalist" writers including Emerson and Thoreau. What exactly do you mean above? What is to be transcended? From/To? I assume you mean by humans. Anything 'Supernatural' involved? Steve
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
Steve Kurtz wrote: Hi Brad, As usual I find your analysis mostly cogent and challenging. Perhaps you can help me here: When the word "transcendental" is as trendy as "algorithmic" there will be some hope for a future. I'm familiar with the "Transcendentalist" writers including Emerson and Thoreau. What exactly do you mean above? What is to be transcended? From/To? I assume you mean by humans. Anything 'Supernatural' involved? Thank you for the "opening" Emerson would certainly be a good place to start (I'm not so sure about Thoreau...) -- *especially* if one is looking for "home grown American sources" (my quote from St. Paul in my email signature is the text of William Ellery Channing's "Baltimore Sermon" of 1819, defining American Unitarianism -- in this honorable tradition of American "transcendentalism". (I really do not know much about Emerson, et al. so I can't elaborate -- but I have been a member of the Baltimore Unitarian Church, where Channing gave his epochal sermon). In no way was I referring to anything "Supernatural", unless -- and this is a quite valid interpretation -- one interprets human existence (thought, praxis...) as *supernatural*, because it is a[n effectively transforming...] perspective upon nature rather than just a part of nature. Emmanuel Levinas wrote (in _Totality and Infinity_ that any belief which does not ultimately resolve to interpersonal relations is not a higher, but always a more primitive form of religion -- Marx would have spoken of man's self-alienation by projecting his own *being* into the world as *a* B/being separate from himself -- etc.) But I was thinking in particular of Edmund Husserl (following Hegel and Kant). The things in the world are *transcendent*: they are ultimately beyond our control (we did not make them). We are *transcendental*: we are a perspective upon everything -- every "thing" [however understood...] is an object for consciousness, or, if you will, consciousness is [to use Kant's terminology:] *the condition for the possibility of [whatever, incl. "everything"...] being anything*. "Transcendental" is a difficult word. But then our scientists claim not to be put off by challenges Also, I was being a bit cynical. Lots of people (including prestige Univ. comp sci PhDs!) mouth off words like "algorithmic", "the brain is a computer", etc. without really knowing what they are talking about. As Gregory Bateson emphasized: the metaphors we use to think about ourselves shape who/what we will be (thinking that a mountain has thoughts and feelings won't hurt much, since the mountain remains just a lump even if we "anthroporphize" it; but if we think of persons as thing-like, then persons will likely try to act like the things they believe they are, thus making themselves be *less* than they might have been -- so the psychologistic, biologistic, computeristic, etc. fallacies are potentially very damaging). Even the things people say that they don't understand affect what they become. Even though it is nonsense, if people believe they are computers, they will become more computer-like. Even though people might not understand what "transcendental" means, if they think of persons as being individually and socially more like a board of directors of the world, overseeing all things and legislating the shape of their world, they'll probably elaborate much richer lives for themselves, even if they don't understand the underlying theory. Best of all for Everyman to deeply understand transcendental [Husserlean, etc.] philosophy; second best for them to try (e.g., mouthing words like "transcendental" which they don't really understand); bad for them to try to become degrading things they don't understand (mouthing off words like "algorithmic", "neurological", etc.). Does this help any? Again, I recommend Enzo Paci for his deep integration of Husserl and Marx. Since we *are* all childreared, I would also include Donald Winnicott (another dead person...) here Of course there are living persons in academe who are working in a constructive direction, e.g., Jurgen Habermas, Axel Honneth... And, *very* recently deceased: Cornelius Castoriadis and Hans-Georg Gadamer (you are welcome to add others...) "Yours in [the] discourse [which constitutes our being human -- transcendental --, in contrast to all things that can be talked about...]..." \brad mccormick -- Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
Michael Gurstein wrote: - Original Message - From: Bruce Podobnik [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 28, 1999 12:17 PM Subject: NYT on the Future You may find this editorial from the New York Times interesting. It addresses Marxism, Gandhi, and forecasts of the future. The Next Big Dialectic New York Times Editorial November 28, 1999 By KURT ANDERSEN At this end of this century, as we bask happily and stupidly in the glow of our absolute capitalist triumph, no long-range historical forecasters are considered more insanely wrong-headed than Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Yet the death of Communism makes this moment a fine one to consider the emergence of Marxism 150 years ago as a historical phenomenon, economically determined, rather than as the social and moral debacle it became. In fact, looking back, Marx and Engels seem prescient about the capitalist transformation of life and work. Writing about globalization in "Principles of Communism" in 1847, Engels sounds very 1999. [snip] In other words, the 21st century will have its Marx. This next great challenger of the governing ideological paradigm, this hypothetical cyber-Marx, is one of our children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren, and he or she could appear in Shandong Province or Cairo or San Bernardino County. [snip] Alas, the Aristarchuses of this future are already dead. There are quite a number of them. But, for me, one stands out: Enzo Paci, who combined the insights of Marx and Husserl in his appositely titled work: _The Function of the Sciences and the Meaning of Man_ (Northwestern Univ. Press, 1972). The book lives up to its title, which encompasses everything we are thinking about here -- but like many things that are in advance of their time The great new philosophical and political schism of the 21st century will concern computers and their status as creatures rather than machines. In my lifetime, the sentimental regard for computers' apparent intelligence -- their dignity -- will resemble that now accorded gorillas and chimps. And it will not stop there. In his book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence," Ray Kurzweil, the computer scientist, quite convincingly predicts that around 2030 computers will begin to seem sentient -- that they will "claim to be conscious." And by the end of the century, he writes, there will no longer be "any clear distinction between humans and computers." [snip] This is utter Medieval Ptolemaic compounded epicyclic thinking. It even misses the point that the only reason we can respect apes and chimps today is that *we have taught them language* -- thus actualizing a potential they "had" all the time but could not realize by themselves (and no 2001 slab came down to help them...). Probably the day has long since passed when a computer could pass "The Turing Test". But in the same way as a photograph or sculpture can approximate what it "represents": to *look* ever more like it, but without ever decreasing the ontological *gulf* between the two by even one angstrom. Emmanual Kant's Copernican revolution in philosophy is still ahead of we who have never yet really been modern. The great political tragedy of the 20th century was the destruction of the promise of anarcho-syndicalism (and the communism which might have led to it; see Robert Capa's great photograph of Trotsky lecturing in Copenhagen, 1932, for a symbol to express this...). The great philosophical tragedy of the 20th century is that the technintelligentsia and the corporation-granted professoriat, with their PhDs in craft skills, with only a few exceptions, haven't the vaguest idea of the difference between humanity as *subject* and psycho-bio- compu-edu-penolo-...lumps as *objects*. Of course it is theoretically conceivable that computers shall one day be able to think (just as it is possible that people will do so, too) -- if consciousness can be produced by the chemical processes which obtain between sperm and egg, then there may be other ways to produce it. But, as Alan Turing said: If ever a machine thinks, we shan't know how it does it. The issue is not whether computers will become conscious (which is highly unlikely, at least in the near term -- what will happen is that computers will become increasingly good facsimiles of people, especially of those persons, like Sartre's waiter, who aspire to be objects [Sartre's person employed as a waiter aspired to *be* a waiter]. The issue is whether persons will become awareness of their humanity: that they (we / I / you) are not just objects in the world, but are also perspectives on the world -- in each of whose living experience (thought, praxis, etc.) all times and places find their place. When the word "transcendental" is as trendy as "algorithmic" there will be some hope
Re: Fw: NYT on the Future
The NYT wrote: In other words, the 21st century will have its Marx. This next great challenger of the governing ideological paradigm, this hypothetical cyber-Marx, is one of our children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren, and he or she could appear in Shandong Province or Cairo or San Bernardino County. Or maybe he's already here -- a guy from Finland who is challenging the governing ideological paradigm that software isn't free (and that the SW market belongs to one man who made his fortune by copying and buying/selling instead of programming). Chris __ REF: http://www.linux.com
