Pt. 3: Technology & Devices

 

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Only God can transcend space and time, but the development of technology throughout history has allowed men to extend beyond their physical limitations within space and time. Defined broadly, language and writings are forms of technology that have allowed ancient voices to be preserved through time. Today, we can just as easily read Plato's Apology as we can a letter handed to us from someone in the next room, both using the same medium of language and the written word. The difference, of course, is that we can just as easily move to the next room and engage with the person who wrote the letter, but no one alive today can hear the sound of Plato's voice nor see his gestures of speech. Technology has carried only Plato's ideas forward through time, but the man himself, in all that he was beyond his ideas, are long forgotten.

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Even with this very archaic form of technology, we can begin to narrow a definition: technology can in some ways broaden the human limitations of space and time, but it simultaneously degrades the quality of interpersonal communion and experience by limiting direct encounters.

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The other distinctive contrast between the technological and spatial planes is the interface by which we navigate those planes. In physical space, it is the body; in the virtual space, it is a device. The most significant device in many of our lives is the smart phone. The smart phone as an interface allows for visual and audible information to extend beyond limitations of space and time and requires a very minimal interaction with the physical body in the spacial plane (only typing on a keyboard). In fact, it is largely irrelevant where the words you're reading right now were written, or when they were written- or even who wrote them. With a device like a smart phone as an interface, the body and whole physical reality of the persons using the devices sinks into irrelevancy; all that exists between them is a communication between minds.

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To understand why today the connection between minds is more prevalent than bodily connection- or why the mind and body are distinguished at all- we can move to our final concept sketch: selfhood.