Where to Begin?

Imagine, if you will, a world without computers. What picture would your imagination paint? From first grade through high school my tools were: a notebook full of lined paper, a pencil, pen and eraser. I learned from a human teacher writing on a blackboard with chalk or lecturing and I studied by reading books. Twenty years later when I finally entered college, I had to have a computer, an internet connection and an email address. Much of my instruction came across the internet. Twenty years after I graduated from college, it is hard to purchase anything, pay a bill, take an airline flight, or even order dinner without a cellphone.

In the introduction of his book The Universal machine, Ian Watson said “In less than one lifespan the computer has transformed almost everything in our society.” In less than one lifespan, our culture and society have changed so quickly that our comprehension of what is ‘normal’ can not keep pace with the ever-evolving technology which is driving evolutionary changes to our culture and society. Our culture has become whatever is ‘trending’ on social media and Netflix. Our society has gone from the interaction of humans, to interfacing with social media. Our technology, which started out as a tool for mankind, has become its ruler.

 

As long as man has been alive, he has dreamed of making a better world for himself and future generations. It is man’s dreams, needs and wants that spark his imagination and the thought processes that eventually produce technology. Has our human created technology made our world better or have we become as Ray Kurzweil predicted in his book, The Singularity Is Near: "One with our technology?"

 

I believe that today, technology and humans influence each other to the point that a change in one causes a change in the other. A harmonious man-machine evolution if you will.

Technology has empowered us to solve complex challenges, it is also challenging us to rethink the very essence of humanity. Today we say that our machines can think, learn, and create. Can they? Are they in fact intelligent? To truly enjoy the benefits of technology while retaining our humanity, we must be deliberate and mindful in our approach to creating and using technology. As we develop systems, we must answer deep philosophical questions with ethical answers. Such as, what does it mean to think, what is intelligence, how does one become intelligent and what does it mean to be human? These debates will help us evolve not only technologically but morally; causing us to prioritize human values and connections in our lives rather than isolating individuals and devaluing their importance to society.

 

In order to answer philosophical questions that will influence the technological discoveries of our future, we need to understand fundamental questions about how technological discoveries of the past has influenced society, ethics and reason. Knowing the how and why of past technological discoveries opens new roads to new discoveries, both now and in the future. Inherent in each discovery, both past and present, is the science, philosophy, scientific method and social attitudes of previous discoveries. Our Heritage of Technology will go back to the beginnings of philosophy and science. But first, we must take a look at the language of both science and technology – Numbers.