Much
of history has been involved in learning how to focus enough with our eyes and
our mind to see things as highly defined discreet entities that can be managed
and manipulated through a series of defined discrete steps to achieve certain
ends. As we have become better at
focusing, we have become better at managing and manipulating. The vehicle through which we have been
increasingly translating strong focus into more strongly defined ends is
algorithms. An algorithm is a procedure
that is mentally constructed to follow a series of well outlined steps in order
to achieve a certain goal. Although the
concept was first developed by an Arab mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
in the ninth century AD, it is in the modern world that it has found an
application in so many areas of daily life.
Algorithms are used for computer applications, applications for
industrial machines, and business strategies including even hiring new
employees. These are just some of the
formal applications of algorithms where people are conscious of setting up
defined formats for daily operations in which numbers and data play a
significant role.
But
the visual and mental states that are adopted in order to perceive the
phenomena in one’s field of experience as highly focused entities are visual
and mental states that cannot be turned on and off so easily. These hyper-focused mental states start
bleeding into many different areas of daily life, many of which areas one would
not have previously associated with algorithmic thinking. Linguistically, these mental states tend to
experience words only in terms of their literal denotative meanings and not in
terms of their more figurative connotative meanings. This is why many people today feel that they can
rely on computers to translate from one language to another. It is because they look at language as simply
a code that is free from the cultural and psychological symbols that allow
words and the meanings they connote to bond deeply together and form larger
cultural meanings for the people who speak and listen to the words. The truth is that a language is much more
than a code. In a code, words have a one
to one correspondence to their meanings.
In a language, these denotative meanings are like the tip of an iceberg
filled with connotative meanings.
Without the presence of connotative meanings, words become isolated figures that are strung
together into sentences and that float in an experiential vacuum. Advanced robots speak using linguistic
algorithms. And so do hyperfocused
humans. Linguistic algorithms not only
prevent words from deeply bonding with one another through symbolic
connotations, they prevent people from properly using language as a vehicle to
bond deeply with one another. Linguistic
algorithms and hyperfocused mental states impede the proper development of
intimate connection. Using linguistic
algorithms, people bond in a more shallow way, in a way that is exclusively for
temporary contingent purposes.
But
it is not only language that is ruled by algorithms today. Many people’s whole lives are ruled by
algorithms. Middle-class parents develop
a plan with defined discrete steps for their children in which children get
sent to the proper pre-school in order to get accepted by the proper grammar
school and do well academically there, and this allows them to get accepted by
the proper high school and do well academically there which allows them to go
the proper university which leads to the appropriate graduate school which
ultimately leads to a successful career.
While growing up, these algorithm-ruled young people are given special
outside enrichment classes in additional academic subjects as well as art,
music, and sports. Almost every moment
is precisely slotted. Every encounter
with the world is geared to be one more mini-step up the ladder to
success. Unlike with previous
generations, there is very little time for free play either with others or by
oneself. There is very little time to
just do nothing and engage in day-dreaming.
Free play and daydreaming are considered a waste of time and not
productive.
So
the child grows up with a mind that has always been focusing on something and
that has developed a lot of defined discrete compartmentalized skills. But the child has never had the opportunity
to develop an organic coherent sense of self with the capacity for deep-bonded
intimacy with other human beings. The
algorithm of his childhood plan of development has basically turned him into a
robot.
Thinking
constantly in algorithmic terms has effects in several different areas of life
as the child grows up. Because the child
lacks an organic coherent sense of self, he also is incapable of recognizing
other people in terms of their organic coherent senses of self. Instead, he sees other people in terms of the
same kind of overly-focused compartmentalized defined discrete functions that
he perceives in himself. He becomes
incapable of deep-bonding with another person, communing with another person’s
whole sense of self. Instead, he
shallow-bonds with the person, connecting with the person in order to utilize
specific functions that the person has to offer. This approach to relationships makes real
intimacy difficult if not impossible.
And this
has profound effects on the development of stable families and stable
communities. No wonder divorce has
become so common and so many families are fragmenting. And lack of emotional grounding in stable
family relationships contributes to major problems of emotional health.
Another
problem area is that of creativity.
People who grow up with a fragmented sense of self, who lack a sense of
their own internal connectedness, lack a capacity for seeing and creating
symbolic connections between different parts of human experience in the
world. And yet symbolic connections are
the foundation of much of what we call great works in the arts. It is these meaningful symbolic connections
that leave deep organic imprints on people’s minds.
Instead,
many artists today project their internal fragmentation out on the world by
creating works with fragmented thoughts (post-modern poetry) fragmented images
(much of contemporary art) and fragmented melodies (modern atonal classical
music). In these cases, it is as if the
algorithms that modern humans use to hold their lives together completely
fail. Algorithms are just no substitute
for organic grounding and organic bonds.
Of
course, some people today do make an effort to create super-coherent images in
the external world. But they are images
that float in a vacuum without symbolic connections and symbolic meanings
related to other phenomena. These are
the hyperrealist photo-like paintings and hyperrealist novels with a morbid
focus on the dark sides of life: poverty, criminality and disease. These creative works don’t develop some
larger symbolic message or comments, but instead hyperfocus the writer on
reality, hyperfocus the audience on reality, shock people into temporarily
pulling together and pulling their view of the world together.
The
excessive use of algorithms and algorithmic thinking turns people into robots. Algorithmic states of mind prevent people
from developing more coherent flowing blendable continual methods of thinking
like instinct and intuition, where a situation being thought about is grasped
as an organic whole. Algorithmic states
of mind prevent people from absorbing the flowing blendable continual stimuli
that are an essential part of rich vibrant life experiences and that are the
foundation of being able to make, receive and preserve organic imprints. Algorithmic states of mind prevent the
development of the organic coherent senses of self that give people the
reflexive awareness necessary to think in terms of using their preserved
organic imprints as a foundation for creating a surrogate immortality and
preparing for death. Algorithms
certainly are useful in some situations, but they have real limitations as an
encompassing framework for the human way of life.
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