Way back in 2010 I posted some marginally connected thoughts about "posthumanism" (see here and here). Then in mid-2012 I observed here that posthumanism hadn't gone away. In case you've forgotten, posthumanists are working to make it possible to "upload" our consciousness to a computer and thus achieve unending life. (Such would not be eternal life, at least as biblically understood. Eternal life partakes of God's perfect inter-Trinitarian relational existence, which would hardly be accomplished by a switch from carbon to silicon.)
Well, what's new? Read here for an excellent review by T. David Gordon of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, by Sherry Turkle. As Gordon observes, "we expect (even long for) human relationships with our technologies, while contenting ourselves with sub-human relationships with humans." In other words, we love our technology but barely tolerate other people. Indeed, now quoting Turkle, "After fifteen years of observation, children want to connect with these machines, to teach them and befriend them. And they want the robots to like, even love, them." One can only imagine how such children will (not) care for their aging parents.
What a far cry from Adam who, when he could not find a helpmeet, received not a robot but Eve. Just as the posthumanists seek to evade the reality of death by prolonging fractured lives, we technophiles seek to evade the reality of human life by investing machines with the friendship we cannot find. Heaven (for only it can) help us.
Well, what's new? Read here for an excellent review by T. David Gordon of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, by Sherry Turkle. As Gordon observes, "we expect (even long for) human relationships with our technologies, while contenting ourselves with sub-human relationships with humans." In other words, we love our technology but barely tolerate other people. Indeed, now quoting Turkle, "After fifteen years of observation, children want to connect with these machines, to teach them and befriend them. And they want the robots to like, even love, them." One can only imagine how such children will (not) care for their aging parents.
What a far cry from Adam who, when he could not find a helpmeet, received not a robot but Eve. Just as the posthumanists seek to evade the reality of death by prolonging fractured lives, we technophiles seek to evade the reality of human life by investing machines with the friendship we cannot find. Heaven (for only it can) help us.
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