Interviews Alongside Jaron Lanier

A summary of:
Zaleski, J. (1997). The Soul of Cyberspace: How New Technology Is Changing Our Spiritual Lives. HarperEdge: New York.
Reflections travel 2 – Interviews amongst Jaron Lanier

I’ll start out this ship service where I left off at the lastly one, i.e. amongst the thought that computers are what nosotros brand them. Lanier puts this inwards no uncertain terms: “Computers don’t exist, to position it bluntly. Computers are just a parcel of matter, as well as they human action every bit computers yesteryear virtue of cultural powerfulness to recognize them acting every bit computers. So nosotros tin brand of them what nosotros will…. We receive got a selection here” (139).

While nosotros receive got a choice, Lanier explains that it is real tardily to larn stuck inwards familiar ways of thinking, peculiarly the to a greater extent than as well as to a greater extent than nosotros engage amongst technology. He uses 2 helpful analogies. The commencement is that of a trolley system: “I recollect at that topographic point are iii dissimilar things that tin happen. One is that you lot tin live just wandering around on a place, some other is that you lot tin receive got a map. The third, as well as it’s what happens amongst computers, is that you lot install a trolley organisation as well as you lot tin boot the bucket only where the trolley is going. That’s much to a greater extent than analogous to what happens when you lot create civilisation using programs. / As presently every bit a figurer plan becomes your tool for creation, you lot tin create only what was conceived of inwards the ideas embedded inwards the program. That’s the nature of programs. Programs are non the same thing every bit nature” (185).

Lanier uses another, to a greater extent than colorful analogy to explicate that it is real hard to live creative (thinking exterior of the box) when you lot are confined to the ‘box’ of the rules of figurer programs: “When you lot endeavor to practise creative piece of work yesteryear playing amongst figurer programs that embed your ain ideas or someone else’s ideas, it’s a piddling flake similar hooking upwardly a metro betwixt your anus as well as your oral fissure to larn nutrition. What you’re doing is, you’re recycling ideas instead of contacting nature as well as exploring it. That’s the divergence betwixt playing amongst musical instruments as well as using computers” (147).

What is this “contacting nature” concern all about? Here it is again: “Essentially, if you lot endeavor to practise scientific discipline without going dorsum to nature, all you’re doing is reexploring human ideas that receive got been laid downward inwards a computer, as well as amplified yesteryear the simulation. So what you’re actually doing is, you’re self-glorifying your ain ideas that receive got been laid down. It’s a piddling flake similar taking a piddling poetry form that you lot wrote as well as and so putting it upwardly inwards a huge marquee inwards lights as well as saying, ‘Oh, wow, that’s actually wise.’ It mightiness be, or it mightiness non be, but the signal is that you’re blinding yourself. Essentially, a simulation takes a starting human thought that somebody had as well as amplifies it, as well as it looks to a greater extent than impressive” (148).

And again: “The way you lot larn off the trolley organisation is yesteryear straight contacting the mysteries of nature. There’s nil incorrect amongst the trolley organisation every bit long every bit you lot larn off. The problem, the nerd way of using the trolley system, to acquit this metaphor on, is to remain on it all the time” (186).

Is this a useful way of defining spirituality? – making contact amongst (the mysteries of) nature? I suppose travel of what Lanier is getting at is the assort of intangibility of reality – that nosotros alive inwards a constantly unfolding reality, of which nosotros are co-creators but tin never fully grasp because of its awesome complexity. This gets dorsum to exactly what Lanier was proverb almost computers beingness a prepare of our imaginations, a subjective thing. As he says, “If you lot recollect of the figurer every bit only a conduit betwixt people, you lot don’t run into this work at all, because as well as so you’re dealing amongst it every bit a conduit betwixt minds. As presently every bit you lot process the figurer every bit an objective thing – every bit a existent instrument, similar a existent person, every bit something that stands yesteryear itself – you lot run into this problem, you lot connect the metro to the incorrect hole” (147). This almost energetic transference would live i of those mysteries of nature, as well as nosotros ought to tap into that unloose energy if nosotros wishing to practise anything really worthwhile – inwards a spiritual way, peradventure – amongst our technology.

Lanier is the Big Daddy of virtual reality, so of course of pedagogy he has opinions almost how this relates to VR. “One way to recollect almost a computer,” he says, “is that it’s a conduit betwixt people. It’s a communication engineering scientific discipline inwards which people tin create miniature worlds that are models of things within themselves inwards guild to receive got a novel degree of communication inwards which they brand upwardly a shared objective reality inwards simulation instead of passing symbols betwixt each other exclusively” (139). I actually similar this notion of trying to stand upwardly for something “inside” yourself, because for the most part, I recollect that where VR as well as social networking as well as the similar has failed thus far is that it only caters to representation of surface or external qualities of ourselves, e.g. Avatars that expect similar us, or Profiles where nosotros fill upwardly inwards biographical information. But the other fundamental aspect of this quote is that Lanier is challenging us to practise smashing things amongst technology, rather than only copy our world. This, inwards fact, is the divergence betwixt someone who tin force what they regard (someone who inwards Ellul’s damage would receive got mastered la technique) as well as a truthful artist, who tin capture the ineffable. The latter would live spiritual, as well as Lanier argues that it should live the destination of technological development: “The potential does non lie, ever, inwards simulating something inwards the physical world. Because it volition ever either live done poorly, or if it seems it’s non beingness done poorly, it way you’re fooling yourself, every bit inwards the instance of the music example, or this evolution-simulation example. If it seems similar the (148) figurer is simulating the existent world, well, it just way that you’ve lost touch. / The correct way to usage computers is to usage them to copy alternate worlds, together amongst other people, every bit a degree of communication” (149).

I care to recollect of examples where nosotros receive got realized this potential on the Internet. But I tin recollect of many where nosotros are doing pitiable simulations. Facebook, for example, fosters mistaken friendships which, I recollect nosotros would all agree, pale inwards comparing to the real. We should non live content to recollect that this is all nosotros tin accomplish amongst our technology, though! While it’s a far to a greater extent than hard challenge – as well as i that may receive got a flash of artistic brilliance, an epiphany – nosotros ought to live striving to create alone novel opportunities for us to think, see, communicate; as well as we’ll know it when nosotros regard it, just every bit nosotros experience when a really smashing image moves us. This is the spiritual.

The challenge at nowadays is that computers be within a framework that reinforces thinking almost them every bit objective ‘things’, every bit the evolution of rational Western thought which is increasingly materialistic, pushing the soul as well as the spirit out of the picture. This makes it hard to sympathise our electrical current creations inwards novel spiritual ways, because they were non created from a worldview that allows for this type of thinking. As Lanier himself says, “I recollect of virtual reality every bit a Western (142) idea, I brand feel of it within the Western framework…. I recollect that the bespeak for the universal cultural framework that tin incorporate everything is futile. So I don’t experience a postulate to endeavor to explicate prana inwards virtual reality. I usage a dissimilar laid of categories to explicate virtual reality that don’t include prana. In my life, I surely recollect inwards the larger framework that does include it” (143). To me, this way that nosotros cannot succeed inwards making ‘slightly to a greater extent than spiritual technology’ if the underlying construction is non radically altered. We receive got to brand “spiritual technology”, non “more spiritual technology”.

The fundamental mightiness prevarication inwards uncoupling engineering scientific discipline from information. In our minds, they are the same. And immediately, data creates the alienation that would live the distancing of ourselves from (the mysteries of ) nature. Lanier explains, “…information is alienated experience. So, nil ever goes over the wires whatsoever. But it tin live whatever nosotros wishing it to be…. These are things nosotros brand up, similar language” (157). His mission, therefore, is this: “What I’m trying to practise is to relieve Western civilisation from beingness destroyed yesteryear information” (180).

In conclusion, all of Lanier’s discussions on what engineering scientific discipline should live exposes his ain spirituality which fits just amongst what Heelas et al described every bit the ‘subjective turn.’ In other words, Lanier is calling for a plough toward the subjective inwards our thinking almost technology, which volition thus Pb to to a greater extent than glorious developments which nourish us inwards ways that technologies produced within an objective image practise not. This is peradventure best exemplified yesteryear Lanier’s “syncretic creation myth”. In this myth, every bit engineering scientific discipline gets developed farther as well as farther along the lines it’s beingness created now, ‘experience’ gets squeezed out, until finally people tin stand upwardly it no longer. “So they convened an emergency coming together almost their lack of experience…. And every bit they knew at that topographic point would be, at that topographic point was only i solution: They got all of their machines as well as they position them inwards a smashing bonfire as well as destroyed them” (196). Call it ‘experience’, ‘subjectivity’, or ‘spirituality’, the lesson is that nosotros postulate to pay attending to these needs, or else i twenty-four hr catamenia nosotros volition wake upwardly to honour that nosotros are living inwards a prison theater of our ain technological creations.