View source for The Third Culture

The Third Culture

The dogma I object to is composed of a set of interlocking beliefs and
doesn't have a generally accepted overarching name as yet, though I
sometimes call it "cybernetic totalism". It has the potential to
transform human experience more powerfully than any prior ideology,
religion, or political system ever has, partly because it can be so
pleasing to the mind, at least initially, but mostly because it gets a
free ride on the overwhelmingly powerful technologies that happen to
be created by people who are, to a large degree, true believers.

Edge readers might be surprised by my use of the word "cybernetic". I
find the word problematic, so I'd like to explain why I chose it. I
searched for a term that united the diverse ideas I was exploring, and
also connected current thinking and culture with earlier generations
of thinkers who touched on similar topics. The original usage of
"cybernetic", as by Norbert Weiner, was certainly not restricted to
digital computers. It was originally meant to suggest a metaphor
between marine navigation and a feedback device that governs a
mechanical system, such as a thermostat. Weiner certainly recognized
and humanely explored the extraordinary reach of this metaphor, one of
the most powerful ever expressed.

I hope no one will think I'm equating Cybernetics and what I'm calling
Cybernetic Totalism. The distance between recognizing a great metaphor
and treating it as the only metaphor is the same as the distance
between humble science and dogmatic religion.

Here is a partial roster of the component beliefs of cybernetic totalism:

1. That cybernetic patterns of information provide the ultimate
and best way to understand reality.

2. That people are no more than cybernetic patterns.

3. That subjective experience either doesn't exist, or is
unimportant because it is some sort of ambient or peripheral effect.

4. That what Darwin described in biology, or something like it, is
in fact also the singular, superior description of all creativity and
culture.

5. That qualitative as well as quantitative aspects of information systems will be accelerated by Moore's Law.

And finally, the most dramatic:

6. That biology and physics will merge with computer science
(becoming biotechnology and nanotechnology), resulting in life and the
physical universe becoming mercurial; achieving the supposed nature of
computer software. Furthermore, all of this will happen very soon!
Since computers are improving so quickly, they will overwhelm all the
other cybernetic processes, like people, and will fundamentally change
the nature of what's going on in the familiar neighborhood of Earth at
some moment when a new "criticality" is achieved- maybe in about the
year 2020. To be a human after that moment will be either impossible
or something very different than we now can know.

Source: [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier/lanier_p1.html http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier/lanier_p1.html]

[[Category:Articles]]