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Does more technology decrease a person's ability?
Although we have unlimited information available instantly, can communicate instantly, create products with less labor at higher tolerances. It appears that people have less ability to focus and handle real world problems?
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Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
i don't even remember how to organize a meeting without mobile phones. but with mobile phones, i can organize a meeting much better than we did back then without them. so cellphones might impair my organizing abilities, they actually increased my organizing potential.
similarly, they might lose ability to solve certain "real life problems", but maybe because they don't need to? just like i can't hunt my lunch with a spear. but i don't care, i can buy meat in the supermarket.
i doubt that the total output of a human being could ever go down with a new piece of technology. in this case, we just wouldn't put that piece at use.
pat gilbert 50+
I think the ability to concentrate is a prerequisite to anything.
The idea of multitasking is specious in that you are really doing many things for a short period of time.
If you watch a video or television then your ability to imagine is not used as this is already done for you.
Has the amount of important information gone up proportionate to people's volume of texts? I doubt it. Which makes me wonder if people have lost the ability to determine what is important and what is trivial.
IMO the test of anything is in it's application is the ability to apply lost in the large volume of input of communication and the responses.
Does communication itself as the speaker said become atrophied? Before you can communicate you have to have someones attention, they have to hear and understand what you are saying, and you have to know that they understood what you have said. Without this production becomes impossible.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
in ancient greece, there was a notion that books are destroying thinking, because young people won't need to learn the texts, they can just read them. maybe they worried about the memorizing skills of the upcoming generations. maybe they were actually right, i can't remember a thing. but i don't exactly care.
pat gilbert 50+
natasha nikulina 50+
We need mobile phones, because we've created the reality where we need mobile phones. :)
And talking about ancient Greece...Socrates didn't write a word ( Plato did ), viewing a word as an image of truth, not the truth itself. Memorizing skills was not his concern, I guess, he cared about the truth and the capacity of upcoming generation to perceive it.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
and i also like books, and disagree with socrates.
natasha nikulina 50+
Are you breathing ? You'd better learn not to. And it's only slightly exaggerated.:)
pat gilbert 50+
Yet I notice that you often employee the Socratic method?
Krisztián Pintér 200+
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/
to get a brighter vision
natasha nikulina 50+
I am confused , do we inhabit the same world ? :)
But the ending of the article ' keep on changing ' sounds good, I am on board !
I have serious doubts though, that we mean the same thing, talking about change.
Krisztian, I am interested , what is the change that can turn the tide ? I would like to hear your opinion.
Thank you.
pat gilbert 50+
You say the glass is half empty, Krisztián says half full
Your right.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
it does not seem that we learned the lesson. we are still going to give up our freedom for a little hope in return. and surely there are candidates to serve that need.
it is our responsibility to say no to that. and to say yes to the future.
natasha nikulina 50+
I am not in a doom-and-gloom business here either, Pat just wrongly took it, defining me as a pessimist.
Not to delegate your responsibilities to a government, or a leader, or...to anybody, actually is a right thing to do, always ,whatever the time you happen to live in.Life is a very personal thing, yet nobody is an island we are all connected , deeply connected, not via mobile phones or any other technical device, but mentally, spiritually or 'quantum mechanically'.Choose any realm you are familiar with, all lead to the same conclusion. When we grasp, truly understand this new/ old age wisdom it brings the change we need, from within, all the rest will fallow. I truly believe so.
And 'the tide has turned 'is a metaphor widely recognised in narrow circles :) I can ntroduce you to it. It is taken from these words from Lynn Twist :
" When the tide turns in the ocean it turns way down deep where no one can see. And then it takes some time before it rises to the surface and then you see the tides turning."
Not that I fully share her ideas , but i like the metaphor. " The Soul of Money " is the book , I haven't read it and most likely won't, but maybe you will, I guess, it's your domain :) . Check out here http://www.soulofmoney.org/about/about-the-book/excerpts/
Have a nice day !
Krisztián Pintér 200+
pat gilbert 50+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
natasha nikulina 50+
Thank you for asking and sorry for the delay with my response, I was not wired yesterday :)
Correct me if i am wrong... Your question can be fashioned like this: what scares me ? What is the worst case scenario I am afraid of? Or even- what can presumably cause my own demise ?
OK...I am not scared, not even close. Not because I don't see the reason ( I do !) but because I don't see any way how fear could possibly help and quite aware that what we fear the most becomes a reality sooner or later. It precisely the way how it works. So, I do fear nothing on this scale.
But ...it is not the point.
' The tide' is not a threat, it's a metaphor for , let's say , a motion, which is beyond judgment. It is not good or bad, it's all about dynamics. If you are interested, I can share with you my thoughts it can lead directly to the topic in current conversation. Actually, nothing is off topic in any conversation :)
Krisztián Pintér 200+
natasha nikulina 50+
Seriously, I appreciate your concern, but to prove, that any calamity , listed in your previous comment, won't happen, takes you a great deal of time, unless you have a Crystal ball.
As to my experience when I go into details, they multiply exponentially with no foreseeable end. But it's me , maybe you can, let's test it via a simple trial.
Take the 'hot' issue : ice is still melting and melting fast. What are the possible consequences ?
Please, make no mistake, I am not scared and need no consolation , I am interested how through logic reasoning and evidence one can draw a self consistent balanced picture of a possible positive outcome.
Thank you !
Krisztián Pintér 200+
being an engineer, i understand science and technology better than the average fella. this also helps. but i actually spend a great deal of my time reading blogs and articles i find informative. blog writers are the persons that actually understand a field, and can deliver in a way you can understand without specific expertise. so we should use them.
i have already gave you the link to ridley. here is another: mark lynas. also have a blog worth reading: http://www.marklynas.org/
natasha nikulina 50+
I think, we are moving to the common ground here and it is the most natural thing, for there is never two grounds anywhere :)
You said: "logic is the last thing....it's more a factual question " , What are facts ? There is no such thing as an uninterpreted fact.To interpret a fact and put it in the cause-effect sequence is exactly what logic is all about. And I agree with you logic is the last thing... What is the first ? Not too many options here, human brain is notoriously known as divided organ into two hemispheres, left and right, intuitive and logical mind.And both are involved in both. To find any solution to the problem big or small we'd better rely on intuition and find the way how logic can support it. Or logic reasoning can push us to intuitive insight. There is no point where one stops and another begins, the movement is not line-like, but spiral, if one is good in using both. Your basic education and reading blogs and articles is helpful, no doubt, but not to be drowned in data,( the amount of these is increasing relentlessly with every passing day ) you need Intuition to guide you.To put pieces together, to see the bigger picture and to feel the flow, the tide. Simply don't deny it.:)
Thanks for the response and links !
Have a nice day !