[ Lock In [1] ]  [ Lock In [2] ]

Finally got my hands on Lanier’s book. Been devouring it like a good doughnut.

In the last post I explained how Sartre sets up this paradox: we are what we are, but precisely part of our being is that we are not simply what we are.

Having got some way into the book, it’s clear that this paradox vexes Lanier too. “What is a person?” he asks.

If I knew the answer to that, I might be able to program an artificial person in a computer. But I can’t. Being a person is not a pat formula, but a quest, a mystery, a leap of faith.

Just a few paragraphs later though, he admits that:

technologists ‘make up extensions to our being, like remote eyes and ears (webcams and mobile phones). These become the structures by which you connect to the world and other people. These structures in turn can change how you conceive of yourself and the world. It takes only a tiny group of engineers to create technology that can shape the entire future of human experience…

In other words, I am not a gadget. But my gadgets do recreate who I am. It’s not called the iPod for nothing…

The troubling thing about this paradox is that the ‘lock in’ which becomes inevitable in a technological world leaves us open to restriction, not liberation. As Lanier explores, technology companies like Apple and Microsoft sell us their wares on a ticket of freedom – but actually we are often being restricted by a lock-in – your iPod to iTunes for example.

This only occurs because of the paradox of our existence. If we were, in Sartre’s language, fully transcendent, we would not be able to be locked in. And if we were fully defined by facticity, we would be locked in already. It’s the paradox of our existence coming into being in the place between facticity and transcendence that means that we are able to be duped by corporations and technologies into thinking that they are making us more free.

For corporations and technologies, read religions and laws. For what is ‘lock in’ other than a codification – an idea reduced to code. And this is precisely what we find in ‘the law’ – the law that is peddled by religions purporting to offer ‘freedom.’

So, and I promise I’ll will get to it in the next post, it’s to this problem of theological lock in, and the effect this has on our person, that we need to reflect on.

[ Lock In [1] ]

In the previous post I raised the idea of technological developments giving rise to ‘lock in.’ Gadgets do not evolve in the organic sense ‘free’ that we might imagine: because of protocols and standardisation (think USB / railway gauges / HTML / Lego) their evolution is guided along particular lines. Other iterations are simply not open to them.

As we have co-evolved with our tools, Jaron Lanier’s thesis in You Are Not A Gadget is that we have experienced a kind of creative ‘lock in’ too: we have begun to see ourselves as gadgets that are restricted to certain forms of expression because our creative tools are themselves locked in.

Sartre explored a similar idea in his work on ‘bad faith.’ Using the pictures of a waiter who acts far too much like a waiter, and a girl who refuses to see that a guy putting his hand on hers is relationally relevant, Sartre outlines two dangers: we either collapse the paradox of our existence into pure facticity, or deny any facticity and consider our lives purely transcendent. As I write in the forthcoming book:

Humans are different from objects in that our consciousness is ‘non self-identifying.’ A table is a table because it fulfils all the properties that we attribute tables as having. But even if we made an infinite list of all the properties of a person, we would never succeed in fully describing their personality. In other words, we aren’t simply human because we do human-like things.

This is why Sartre says the waiter is living in ‘bad faith’ : he is feeling an obligation to display the attributes of a waiter, even though there is nothing that should force him to do so. However, he is also equally critical of the girl because, even though she refuses to be described by the facts of her actions, her transcendent position – positing her hand as something outside of her self – is also a denial of the true situation.

Sartre thus sets up this paradox: we are what we are, but precisely part of our being is that we are not simply what we are.

How does this connect to Lanier’s thesis? As I’ve said, I’ve not yet read the book, and am looking forward to doing so. But picking up from what he’s said in interview, ‘not being a gadget’ is about not being locked into the self-identification that expression-through-tool-use binds us to.

However, what will be interesting to see is if Lanier does conceed that in some ways we are gadgets: there is an element of ‘lock in’ to our humanity, and there is an element of facticity to our person. And it’s to this paradox of being freely locked in that I think sheds light on our theological practice too, which I’ll look at in the next post.

One of my favourite podcasts is Material World – a science review from the BBC. In a recent episode, Jaron Lanier discussed his recently published manifesto: You Are Not A Gadget. I’ve ordered it, but not read it yet, but was very much taken by one line of thought he introduced in the interview – that of ‘lock in.’

The classic example of technological lock in is railway gauges. Once a gauge has been decided upon – very often an arbitrary decision – technologies that surround that decision have to literally fall into line. There is no point inventing a radical new steam train that doesn’t run on the current standard gauge – it would simply not be adopted, unless it was such a breakthrough that the huge amount of new investment was really worth it.

It seems that part of Lanier’s thesis is that similar ‘lock ins’ have emerged in digital technology. Software protocols and languages, and the evolution of certain ’strong’ products such as the iPod have left us locked in to solutions that do not necessarily represent the ideal. What is more – this lock in has become fully accepted by us and we have co-evolved to adopt these gadgets unquestioningly. The result? A paucity of human creativity, a reduction in the breadth of human experience and innovation… Avatars locked in to lives and technologies over which we have little genuine control.

I’ve just finished reading the page proofs of ‘Other’ – due out in June and available for pre-order already. I’m really pleased with it, and was reminded again of Sartre’s thinking on life in ‘bad faith’ (blog series on this here), which appear to parallel very well with Lanier’s ideas. And it’s that that I’ll look at in the next post.

Do I think it’s that simple? No. But nor do I think it’s as simple as counter-texts such as the ‘axis of evil’ speech make out either. And nor do I think that Britain – or any other nation/people who fetishise capital – are any better than the US. It’s not them, it’s us. This whole Iraq war, and the whole concept of a ‘war on terror’ has been a total debacle, and capitalism has been right at the centre of it.

Apple are an increasingly intriguing company. They are a huge multinational – bigger than Sony or Samsung – yet constantly define themselves as the trendy outsiders, in opposition to the fat hulking mass that is Microsoft. As Steve Jobs said recently (thanks to Tomal Price for sending me the quote) ‘why join the navy when you can be a pirate?‘

I’d argue that Apple are much closer to being navy boys than anyone would like to admit, and that the ‘outsider’ image is simply a clever piece of corporate spin to make people feel edgy and excited.

In the article I try to look a bit at Apple via the history of their logo. For Apple, this logo-come-halo is all-important. Subtly adorning every product, the Apple device has naturally undergone a transformation in parallel to the corporate image that they want to project. The original logo was an etching of Newton sitting under a tree: nerdy, earnest and complex:

This evolved into the rainbow shades of a bitten apple – which Jobs thought would present a friendly image: the computer as helper.

Now the colours have gone, and all is flattened. Thin, sensual, intelligently simple, sleek… The logos speaks clearly, and we see our own values mirrored in the shiny new surfaces it decorates.

Jobs is clear, the bite on the Apple logo was to stop it looking like an orange. But this particular fruit has always been rich in meaning. The bitten apple is the birth of knowledge and the end of innocence, perhaps even the birth of the ‘i’.

Yet it is also the beginning of something remarkable, and one cannot fail to be caught up in the technologically optimistic world that Jobs presents to the faithful: everything will be alright. He has created, and from the chaos of the modern digital life, he wants us to see that what he has made for us is good.

This is what Apple do so very well: they sell us our desires. Like the icons of old, we will gaze into our iPads wanting solace and communion and equilibrium and connection. What exactly they will offer us is, as yet, unknown, but without disappointment there will be no more demand.

So while few have actually put their hands on one yet, we can guarantee one thing about gazing into the dark glass of the iPad: after the initial rush, it will be disappointing. It won’t heal us.

How does one begin to unpack this? First of all, this is a serious organisation. They really believe that:

a) the Rapture will mean that Christians (well, the good sort, anyway) will be rushed away to paradise, where there will be a sign saying ‘no dogs.’ Presumably guide dogs won’t be an exception.

b) this Rapture will leave behind a world in complete turmoil, but one with intact communications systems that will allow the left-behind atheists to roll-out their programme of finding, rescueing and looking after the pets left behind by the thoughtless Christians who’ve just gone on permanent vacation.

To be honest, I’d be more interested in ‘After The Rapture: Who’s Looking After Your Ferrari’, and I’m sure some unscrupulous atheists are already eyeing an quick rapture to bag the great-looking non-believing partner of their Christian friends…

Yes, it is easy to mock. And I could go on doing so for hours. But actually there are some interesting questions around this. What sort of religious mindset believes that this is a good eschatology? The service is based on soothing the worries of Christians who might find themselves anxious about their pets when in heaven. If they were anxious, it is surely not a perfect place. And if it takes a group of atheists to perfect The Heaven Experience™ by looking after their pets, we have some serious conflicts of interest.

But, more worryingly, what sort of culture have we created where some people seem more concerned with the welfare of their pets in the case of a rapture than they are with the fate of the billion people in the world today who will go without clean drinking water?

In 2007, Americans spent some $41 billion on their pets, and Brits around $480 million. Is this a wise use of money? If people are serious about rapture, should they not be trying to convert people, rather than leave them uncoverted in order to work some kind of salvation for their dog? (Or rabbit, to be fair. Couldn’t write a post like this without flagging up the classic book written by a friend-not-to-be-named’s mum ‘Will My Rabbit Go To Heaven‘)

But the final question I’m left with is this: if the rapture leaves all the pets behind, I’m guessing the ‘grand banquet’ isn’t going to be me feasting on lobster and steak. Damn it, I might have to stay down here for the chaos and bag me a Ferrari…

I’ve a short piece on Alan Turing in this month’s Third Way. If you don’t already subscribe, you should.

One of the key strands of Turing’s thinking was on whether a machine could think like a human. After World War 1, where men had been treated like disposable fighting machines, and World War 2, where millions had been exterminated by cold machinary, this was a hugely important question.

If a machine could be built that was indistinguishable from a thinking human, what would that mean for us as a species? The ‘Turing Test’ was thus established – could a human tell if their interlocutor was another human, or just a machine?

Part of the paradox that Turing identified within this test is that of the dichotomy of infallibility and intelligence. ‘If a machine is expected to be infallible,’ he said, ‘it cannot also be intelligent.’ Part of what it is to be human is to get to solutions by making mistakes.

Sadly, the society of the day never saw his sexuality as anything other than brokeness, and thus tried to ‘fix’ him with ostrogen injections. One of the greatest thinkers – and peacemakers – of the 20th Century thus ended his own life in deep depression by eating a poisoned apple. A tragic, and hugely resonant end to an amazing life.

I’ve enjoyed seeing Avatar – most recently at a very late night showing at the BFI Imax cinema. It’s not brilliantly plotted or scripted, but a great spectacle nonetheless.

However, I found myself focusing on a problem that 3D cinema has compounded – especially in the immersive environment of Imax. Because the screen is so large, and the 3D presentation gives the impression of depth, the temptation is to actually ‘look around’ the scene, rather than simply focus on the lead element in the shot. Trouble is, you can’t do this. There’s a fundamental depth of field problem when shooting through any lens: only one thing can be in focus at any one time.

I’m not really sure if there is any technological solution to this. But it struck me as an interesting limitation. No matter how immersive the experience, life through a lens has limited depth. The ability to change focus quickly, to draw in close and reach out wide, and for people to do this differently in the same vista, is uniquely real life.

In conclusion: life is violent. Always has been. Ouch.
HT Martin Wroe.