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“One the one hand we insist that we are different from machines because we have
emotions, bodies and an intellect that cannot be captured in rules, but on the other we
play with computer programs that we think of as alive or almost alive. Images of
machines have come ever closer to images of people, as images of people have come ever
closer to images of machines. Experts tell us that we may read our emotions through
brain scans, modify our minds through reprogramming, and attribute significant elements
of personality to our genetic code…Their message is that we are so much like machines
that we can simply extend ourselves through cyborg couplings.” Sherry Turkle (177)
Technology begins as a quest to complete work with less time and with more ease. For
example, the cotton gin was invented to speed up the work that people did with their
hands. The printing press sped up the process of copying texts. Machines were, in a
way, an extension of our own capabilities. This pattern was continued into the present
day in ways that people would have never expected. It is necessary for a person to stop
and think about the machines that he or she mindlessly use everyday and examine the
relationship that they share. Think about what your immediate reaction to the statement
above is. Are you thinking ‘I am not a machine’? Think about the way that Sherry
Turkle examines it. First she mentions that experts claim we “read our emotions through
brain scans.” The fact that we metaphorically read our emotions to begin with is a way
that we relate ourselves to something that we physically do. Before literate cultures, this
metaphor could not have existed. The fact that we can read emotions by looking at the
way our brain is functioning with current technology shows that technology has the
ability to truly get inside of who we are. Moreover, people talk about school or a job or
propaganda working to “reprogram” their minds. This word clearly comes from the ways
that computers operate. They are reprogrammed in order to do some different function or
to attain more capabilities. This, too, reveals that people now relate to themselves, others
and machines in similar ways. So do you think now that technology has helped shape
who you are? Are you beginning to see the ways that technological developments
attribute to the ways in which we think and act? Technology may have begun as a way to
extend ourselves and abilities, but it seems as though the relationship has become much
more fluid and less clearly discernable.
Where is this going in my life?