week 7 to 8 part 2

• Martin Heidegger


  German Philosopher, "Father of Existential Phenomenology", Author of "Sein Und Zeit" or "Being and Time" (1889-1976)
• Technology


  A way of bringing forth, making something. Ancient Greek concepts: Poiesis - bringing forth, Aletheia - truth, disclosure, unconcealedness, Techne - skill, art, or craft. Technology is a poiesis that discloses or reveals the truth.
• Technology as a Mode of Revealing

  1. Common Understanding of Technology: Means to an end, Product of human activity, Practical application of science

  2. Correct but not true. We pursue the true through the correct. Experience and understanding of what is correct leads us to what is true.
• Questioning


  A process of knowing the truth of who we are as beings in this world - Martin Heidegger in Question Concerning Technology
• Modern Technology


  • Challenges forth, Very aggressive in its activity, Sets or brings about a setting upon, Expedites unconcealment of nature, Stores that which is extracted from nature
• Enframing


  Way of revealing in modern technology. Meditative thinking - let nature reveal itself without forcing it. Calculative thinking - views nature as calculable and orderable system of information. Conceals poiesis (bringing forth), Better understood and controlled
• Modern technology views Earth as a huge gas station, a representative of the extraction, drilling and rape of Mother nature.
• If we allow ourselves to be swallowed by technology

  We lose the essence of who we are as beings in this world
• Scientism


  The belief or ideology that science is the best or only test for truth of any kind. Science as power where science becomes the dictator of the culture.
• Scientocracy


  The practice of basing public policies on science. A government of the people, but informed by scientists.
• Scientists are now telling us that we're blowing past planetary boundaries at breakneck speed.
• Buen vivir


  A theory of progress that requires reaching a higher level of understanding and consciousness about what we're doing here and why.
• Economist Peter Edward argues that instead of pushing poorer countries to "catch up" with rich ones, we should be thinking of ways to get rich countries to "catch down" to more appropriate levels of development.
• dward argues that instead of pushing poorer countries to "catch up" with rich ones, we should be thinking of ways to get rich countries to "catch down" to more appropriate levels of development.
• Rich countries


  • Excess income and consumption
  • Higher literacy rates?
  • Higher life expectancies?
  • Higher happiness indicators?
• Theory of progress


  Requires reaching a higher level of understanding and consciousness about what we're doing here and why
• Theories of progress


  • Buen vivir
  • How much is enough?
• Robert and Edward Skidelsky
• Machines and robots -approach human-like nature and humans may also have the tendency to be machine-like
• Easy access to information, with one touch and swipe of fingertips, human begin to function more like automatons
• Internet -instant go-to tool for answers and questions, as internet gets more intelligent, humans are in danger of becoming less
• When Technology and Humanity Cross

  More to think about
• Chief Scientist and Corporate Executive Officer of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy wrote a controversial essay, Why the future does not Need us?
• In his work, he contended that our most powerful 21st century technologies -genetics, nanotech, and robotics (GNR) are threatening to make humans an endangered species
• Each of these technologies also offers untold promise: The vision of near immortality that Kurzweil sees in his robot dreams drives us forward; genetic engineering may soon provide treatments, if not outright cures, for most diseases; and nanotechnology and nanomedicine can address yet more ills

  
• Certainly, the technologies underlying the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) - were powerful, and the weapons an enormous threat. But building nuclear weapons required, at least for a time, access to both rare - indeed, effectively unavailable - raw materials and highly protected information; biological and chemical weapons programs also tended to require large-scale activities.
• The 21st-century technologies - genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) - are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses.
• Most dangerously, GNR is accessible to individuals or small groups, does not require funding and large facilities or rare raw materials, and knowledge alone will enable the use of them, making GNR more scary, more prone to accidents, and abuses, and may self-replicate and spin out of control.
• A bomb is blown up once - but one bot can become many and can quickly get out of control
• Human should have learned the lesson in the atomic bombings of Japanese Cities, 1945 that killed over a hundred thousand people (Brilliant phsyicists, led by J. Robert Openheimer, brought into existence a deadly nuclear weapon. A definite testament to the success of S & T, but was a fatal reminder of its destructive power.
• Science and Technology, may be the highest expression of human rationality
• We Shape or destroy the world
• Good life entails


  Living in a just and progressive society were we are free to flourish
• HUMAN person has the autonomy to make choices
• UDHR - a global standard
• Preamble of UDHR: '"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world ..."'
• Human dignity


  An ultimate core of our existence
• To become fully human


  More free, more rational, and more loving
• How can we become fully human?

  • Human beings can become more free when we are empowered to make choices
  • We become more rational when we are able to value and apply the principles of logic and science in our lives
  • We become more loving when we ensure that human dignity lies at the foundation or our endeavors (scientific or technological)
• "Human dignity is an ultimate core of our existence"