Information is the Source of Our Stream
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that ?[man] is a stream whose source is hidden? (The Over-soul, 1841). I find this to be an intriguing metaphor given the nature of our readings for this week. We cannot see the source of the stream, we can only guess as to its nature. However, there is another implication in the use of such a metaphor: where is the stream going? In this week?s readings we looked at the origins of digital information theories and examined some ideas of how these theories relate to us as human beings. For some theorists, this relationship is indeed the source of our stream. Emerson was dealing with spiritual issues and the mystery of our soul?s workings. Computers, too, have this mystery. As Lupton points out, ?trust and dependency are combined with mystique? (p. 98). She also quotes Heim, who stated, ?Our fascination with computers is?more deeply spiritual than utilitarian? (p. 98).
Are our souls truly made up of information? Lupton describes how some computer advertising portrays the computer as a ?mirror of the soul? (p. 106). Hayles describes Moravec?s belief that our ?beings are essentially informational patterns rather than bodily presences. If a technology can replicate the pattern, it has captured all that really matters in a human being? (p. 72). Hayles goes on to say that ?the imagined escape of soul-as-information from the body depends only on having access to the appropriate high technology? (p. 73). So, maybe our source isn?t actually hidden. Perhaps we know exactly where it is, we just have not yet found the tool we need to view it. Moravec?s ideas are not unique. Lupton claims that ?human brains?are frequently described as organic computers?, a metaphor that, she points out, makes human brains rhetorically more computer and less human (p. 100). Louis Rossetto of Wired magazine once described computers as ?brain appliances? (in David Hudson?s book Rewired). Can it be that human thought processes are simply algorithmic presentations of information? I find it a rather sobering thought, but many people are excited to embrace the idea. So, for the rest of this post, let?s operate under the assumption that man is a stream whose source is information. What do our readings tell us about the navigation of that stream?
From its beginnings, the logical structure of technology has been based on the way that theorists envisioned the workings of the human mind. Hobart and Schiffman discussed Turing?s machine, saying that it had to ?resemble human thought in two basic ways? (symbol observation and state of mind) (p. 214). Turing even described his universal computer in human terms with pronouns like ?his.? Wiener acknowledges no difference in the way a human mind works and the way a machine can work. When he asks if a person is needed in case of emergencies, his answer is simple: no. ?Any emergency you can think of, you can provide for in your computing and control apparatus? (p. 70). In other words, there?s no situation in which we might think differently than an algorithmic computer program. And if we try, Wiener says, we ?are almost certain to make a wrong decision? (p. 70). The implication here, then, is that we can only think the same way as a computer and if we move outside that mode of thought (into the realm of emotion or irrationality) we are likely to be wrong.
Wiener does not necessarily think that giving over all of our thought to machines is the greatest idea, though. He says there ?is a very real danger? in ?[burning] incense before the machine god? (p. 71). Hayles, too, calls the idea ?wrongheaded and dangerous? (p. 73). But immersing ourselves in the logical world of the computer is how many people choose to navigate our spiritual stream of information.
Lupton says that the ?dream of cyberculture is to leave the meat behind and to become distilled in a clean, pure, uncontaminated relationship with computer technology? (p. 100). She goes on to describe the computer hacker?s body as something neglected and, in their mind, secondary. This goes along with the fantasy of a cyborg culture. For males, it is the image the Terminator or Robocop. In this fantasy the computer hackers are given the opportunity to literally become one with their technology. In the online realm, it allows their ?disembodied? (p. 103) online persona to be a complete contrast to their ?physically repugnant? (p. 102) physical bodies. If our soul is indeed made up of nothing but information, it would make sense that we would want to fully immerse ourselves in a world that is made up of nothing but information.
According to our Hayles, though, this where the logic of our soul/stream as information breaks down. She says that if ?we accept the materiality of the world [as] immaterial to our concerns?, we will miss ?the very complexities that theory?tries to excavate and understand? (p. 94). She argues that information in and of itself has no meaning. She says ?we are drowning in information? that has no meaning other than profit. If information has no meaning and we make the assumption that our souls or brains are nothing but information, then we have no meaning.
This statement is, admittedly, a bit extreme. But the ideas of theorists like Moravec and Kurzweil (author of The Age of Spiritual Machines) are also extreme. They believe that we are nothing but information and that our stream?s final destination is to exist bodiless in the realm of information. The idea brings us back to something that was briefly talked about a few weeks ago ? the need to leave a mark, our ancient quest for immortality. Hayles calls it a ?fear of death so intense that it mystifies the power? of our technologies (p. 73).
So, is the source of our soul/stream really information? Or is it simply our substitute for something that is truly hidden? Is it compensation for our innate fear of what lies beyond? Is it nothing more than Thoreau claims: ?[all] our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end.? Is, after millennia of searching for meaning, a potential loss of meaning an unimproved end?
Or perhaps we have indeed found the source of our stream. Emerson tells us that ?God comes to see us without bell.? Neil Postman says that something becomes mythical when it becomes ?so deeply embedded in our consciousness that it is invisible? (Amusing Ourselves to Death, p. 79). Michael Heim claims that when we are online (in our virtual information world), we ?emulate the perspective of God.? I would argue that the technology of the Internet, the virtual world we call cyberspace, is unseen. We immerse ourselves so much in our digital world; we depend so much on computers, that they are invisible to us. We take our machine-god for granted; it comes to us ?without bell.?