More
and more of the technological processes we produce today seem like magic. We produce machines that have more and more
defined discrete parts: both mechanical pieces as well as digital components
that fit together in complicated ways and help to run the machine. Most of us are not mechanical engineers or
computer programmers, so for us, all of the defined discrete component
processes that allow a machine to operate, actually seem to blur together into one flowing blendable continual process
that just blurs into and out of the external world. It is simply too difficult for us to focus on
and to understand all of these defined discrete component processes
separately. They simply blend together
in our perception into one mysterious magical process.
This experience is very different from
when we use traditional tools to make, repair and operate different
things. In those traditional work
processes, we can see what is happening, and to the extent that we are agents
using the tools, we can feel a sense of control and dominance over processes in
which we are participating. The
processes can be broken down into defined discrete work steps that we can
understand. And we are actively
exercising our free will in performing all of the different steps of the
processes.
This contrasts
with using a modern machine where we press a button or pull a lever and a
complicated process, in which we are not directly participating at each step,
starts to occur. This is where people
start to experience a blurry sense of magic.
And there is no machine where this blurry sense of magic is more likely
to be experienced than with a 3-D printer.
It seems that different kinds of 3-D printers can be programmed to
produce practically anything today from scratch: machine parts, human body
parts, a gun. The list is endless.
But
what I want to focus on for this article is a 3-D printer that children will be
able to use to make and design their toys.
This 3-D printer is called a Thingmaker and it is being produced by the
Mattel toy company. This Thingmaker is a
modern version of a product sold by Mattel in the 1960’s in which a child could
produce toys using molds and liquid plastic.
The modern Thingmaker has much more ambitious objectives. The Thingmaker does come with fixed designs
that can be used to produce standard toys.
But it also has the capability to produce toys designed by the children
who are using it. Furthermore, the
Thingmaker is accompanied by an app which allows children to make toys on
standard 3-D printers. To make
Thingmaker safe for children, the door to its printer closes when in use, and
the printing head retracts when not being used, so that children can’t burn
their fingers. However there is a
transparent window through which children can watch the process of creation
going on, when the Thingmaker is making a toy.
And
here is where we come to the notion of a Thingmaker as a source of magic. So many different little things have to occur
with so many different parts. The child
is not going to really be able to see fully how a toy is being made in the way
that he can see a cabinetmaker making a piece of furniture or a potter making a
pot. The child sets in motion the
process of creation by choosing a pre-existing design or else by creating a
design of his own. Once that happens,
the Thingmaker is activated and the toy is automatically built by adding layer
after layer of plastic. When a child
watches an artisan creating an object, he sees the easily understandable
defined discrete steps in the creation of an object and, in seeing the steps,
he gets an intuitive grasp of the steps and a sense of mental control over the
steps such that he can feel that someday he will make the object himself should
he so desire. And in a larger sense,
seeing processes of creation done by tools, gives a child a sense that the
world can be controlled and mastered through his own efforts, that he can use
his hands to engage the world and make what he needs.
But
where is the sense of control and mastery using a Thingmaker? Certainly if a child selects a pre-existing
design, there is not only no participation in building a toy, but there is no
creativity as well. Now if a child
builds a toy using his own design, there is certainly some creative input in
the conception of the product. But
coming up with an idea for a toy and then watching a complicated machine using
a process one really doesn’t understand in order to create it, is almost as
magical as asking a genie to give him a toy based on a dream idea and then
watching it appear suddenly by magic.
There is no meaningful organic friction on the part of the child to
allow him to have a rich vibrant experience in building his toy. Instead, the creation of the child’s dream
toy occurs behind a transparent window in what is, for all intensive purposes,
an experiential vacuum for the child. In
other words, just providing the conception of something that would
traditionally require some manual participation should the child build it, some
engagement of the hands, means that the child is leaving a very flimsy, one
might say vacuumized organic imprint. At least, when a child builds a toy on
the printer using a pre-existing design or buys a ready-made toy, there is no
pretense that he is making and preserving a meaningful imprint in the
construction of the toy. The process of
conceiving toys that are then made automatically will teach a very important
implicit message to children. That life
can truly be a dream, because without some meaningful organic friction, it is
hard to know that one is living in the external world. Dreams are very comfortable, but too much
life in dreams means one is unable to have the rich vibrant experiences that
come with organic friction. One becomes
too comfortable to make, receive and preserve meaningful organic imprints and
one becomes incapable of preparing for death with a meaningful personal
surrogate immortality through achievements and relationships.
With
magic comes a sense that one really has very little direct control over the
external world. Life is not simply a
matter of getting the things that one wants to obtain. It is also a matter of acting in such a way
that one experiences organic friction in the process of transforming the
external world in some way, leaving some meaningful organic imprint in order to
obtain the desire thing. Meaningful life
involves transformative journeys in order to obtain one’s desired things. When one gets things too easily, one tends to
become more passive, even fatalistic.
Fatalism is frequently applied to poor people who feel that misfortunes
and disaster are beyond their control.
But fatalism can also apply when a child receives an ongoing flow of
good fortune that seems beyond his control.
Nonstop good fortune can, in the long run, be just as predictably
routine as nonstop bad fortune. In both
cases, what is coming seems inevitable.
Hence, the fatalism.
A
human without the friction to stimulate the development of a strong will and
the consequent capacity to make meaningful imprints can end up being controlled
and manipulated himself. In today’s
world, this lack of friction is one of the fundamental factors leading to
becoming like a will-less controllable robot.
This is a danger of having a magical machine like a Thingmaker making
many different kinds of toys that one conceives of. The inevitable of the good can paradoxically
become a preparation for the inevitable of the bad. So as machines, computers and robots start
gradually to encroach more and more into human space and to take over more and
more in the human world, who will have the will to stop them?
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