Psychology
in today’s world assumes that the only significant animate agents of impact on
human behavior are human. Biological
psychology assumes that each person’s own brain chemistry and brain structure
is the major cause of his behavior and his problems. Cognitive psychology assumes that each of us
learns habits of conduct, and that a person with harmful habits can be
retrained. Psychodynamic psychology
assumes that family members have a profound influence on an individual’s
behavioral traits. All of them focus on
the human causality of human behavior.
My
assumption is that the artifacts of human culture have evolved to the point
where they have a complexity of behavior that exists somewhat independently of
humans. This complexity means that these
artifacts can no longer be micromanaged like a hammer, a knife or a spoon in a
way that they can be used almost as if they were appendages of our hands. Modern technological artifacts have arrived
at the point where they are somewhat independent agents. They are somewhat independent in their
behavior. They have not yet evolved to
the point where they can be perceived as having an emotional existence
independent of humans. But their
independence in behavior is sufficient such that we can say that people don’t really fully control these new
technological artifacts; rather people interact with them. To the extent that modern technological
artifacts have somewhat independent behavioral existences, and that people
don’t fully control them, it can be said that these artifacts leave patterns of
marks on people’s minds as a result of modeling for and mirroring in people’s
minds.
I
use the term marks in order to indicate that all artifacts leave a different
kind of experiential impression on a person’s mind than what an animal
leaves. Very simply, an artifact does
not have any kind of a coherent mental presence behind the experiential
impressions it leaves. An artifact, even
a robot, has definition, but it still is the sum of its parts and its defined
purposes. An animal is greater than the
sum of its parts and defined purposes as a result of its organic cohesion, and
certainly humans have a variety of behavior such that they can leave unique
impressions on our minds in our encounters with them. And one of these impressions, filled as it is
with organic blendable continual stimuli, is more truly unique than a machine
impression, because, as I pointed out in one of my early articles, there are
different kinds of infinity, and there is a larger infinity of organic
blendable continual stimuli in the world than there is of measured defined
discrete stimuli. This is analogous to
the fact there is a larger infinity of points on a line than the quantity of
discrete numbers. And this is why I try
to distinguish between the impression left by an artifact, and, in particular,
a modern machine, computer or robot, on the one hand, and the impression left by
an organism. This is why I call the impression
left by an artifact, a mark, implying something more standardized, more remote,
less intimate. And why I call the
impression left by an animal an imprint, implying something more unique and
intimate.
These
are by no means meant to be scientific terms relating to the kinds of stimuli
an organism might receive in a laboratory.
Rather I am dealing with different groupings of stimuli that impact
humans in daily life in different ways.
A machine is more of a defined figure dominated by defined discrete
stimuli, while a human is more of a figure with blurry boundaries and a large
proportion of more organic blendable continual stimuli. And with these different groupings of
stimuli, it explains why machines, on the one hand, and humans, on the other, leave
different kinds of impressions on the human mind.
In
spite of this distinction, modern technological artifacts – machines, computers
and robots – do have a profound influence on the way people grow and
develop. But because they leave what I
call mechanical marks rather than organic imprints, they are not usually
considered as major influences in human development and psychopathology.
Because
machines leave mechanical marks on the mind rather than organic emotional
imprints, people usually don’t focus on ongoing flows of technological
experience as sources of negative influence on the development of the human
self. Computers and robots aren’t
ascribed agency in their influences on people, because they don’t have a sense
of self the way people do. Nevertheless,
computers and robots do have a profound influence on humans through the
mechanical marks they leave.
The
difference between mechanical marks and organic imprints is that the impression
of a mechanical mark is defined, discrete and even percussive, while an organic
imprint is blendable, continual and bonding.
The mechanical impressions from a machine don’t lead to the same kind of
emotional connection as the organic impressions from another human. Nevertheless, the impressions made by modern technology
devices, particularly modern consumer technology devices, can be just as
shaping of a young developing human as adult humans. Mirroring and modeling do not require a
two-way emotional bonding between human and machine for them to function as mental
processes in the human. All that is
required is for the human to emotionally bond to the machine.
And
this is the main point I want to make in this article. Mirroring and modeling can occur in a young
developing human mind, even if there is not a two-way emotional bonding between
the entity that is absorbing and the entity that is emitting. The behavior of a young human can be shaped
by a complex entity, even if this complex entity doesn’t love him or otherwise
emotionally connect to him. And if the
young human spends a lot of time with that complex entity, the consumer
technology device, the person’s capacity for mature human love is not
stimulated as much as it should be. A
person bonds with a consumer technology device, but that bonding is not a
full-fledged human love object.
Time
spent bonding with consumer technology devices is time taken away from bonding
with parents, parental figures and other nurturing relationships. A window of opportunity is lost for
developing the capacity for deep two-way bonding human relationships. So not only does a young person get
psychologically molded by the mirroring and modeling involved in the one-way
bonding technology relationships, but he loses the opportunity to get properly
shaped as a human by intense involvements with other humans. No wonder that so many young adults are
frightened by the intensity of emotional intimacy. They never had the opportunity to develop the
emotional channels for such intimacy.
They are no longer very capable of absorbing the organic blendable
continual stimuli that come from emotionally intimate bonding. In other words, bonding with consumer
technology devices leads indirectly to the breakdown of marriage and family. This is certainly a situation that should
worry all of us.
By
the way, it is true that robots are getting more complex and sophisticated and
eventually may appear to be very similar to humans. But they will still be primarily controlled
by defined discrete stimuli, and they will still be incapable of the organic
bonding that humans are capable of. And
humans that become part robot, that become cyborgs, will have a diminished
capacity to absorb organic blendable continual stimuli and a diminished
capacity for organic bonding. To the
extent a person becomes a machine, to that extent he can’t bond.
© 2013 Laurence Mesirow
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