A Instance For Spiritual Technology

In 2000, CHI held a particular interests workshop entitled, “Can nosotros receive got spiritual experiences on-line?” boldly venturing into relatively unchartered territory, the conference organizers themselves admitting, “Curiously, nosotros receive got non been able to abide by whatever publications relevant to this topic” [paper]. The workshop began from the supposition held yesteryear Muller et al. that:

…the dominant pattern rhetorics of pattern operate inwards human-computer interactions (command-and-control; constant updates too interruptions of novel information; fast-action games; denotative, explicit clarity rather than connotative, exploratory ambiguity) worked against what nosotros called the “inner stillness” of spiritual life [paper].

They study that this supposition was challenged yesteryear the numerous anecdotal accounts of participants using applied scientific discipline for seemingly spiritual purposes, e.g. visiting religious websites, communing amongst people sharing similar interests, comforting i some other via email, etc.. Six years later, Genevieve Bell [paper] draws similar conclusions most the potential of applied scientific discipline to facilitate spiritual experiences, citing countless examples of the ways inwards which religious people receive got appropriated technological tools to build “being religious” easier: e.g. people texting prayers, ministers uploading podcasts of their sermons, or mobile phones amongst “mosque” settings that forbid the telephone from ringing during prayer times. Bell’s newspaper suggests that at that topographic point require non live on incompatibility betwixt organized religious belief too applied scientific discipline if the latter is designed amongst the needs of religious users inwards mind.

Problem solved! Kumbaya! Or possibly not. This conclusion does appear rather facile considering the weight of the question, non to the lowest degree of all because of the superficial interpretation of what it way to receive got a spiritual experience (conveniently conflating spirituality amongst organized religious belief to neatly avoid word of the less tangible inner human experience). I would combat that spell having a telephone that allows y'all to read the Koran mightiness build the telephone a conduit of spiritual exchange, that does non build the using of the telephone a spiritual experience. Nor does using a word processor to type a sermon build the experience of the word processor spiritual inwards itself. H5N1 useful comparing tin live on made amongst the shakuhachi flute. This musical instrument has long been associated amongst the spiritual practices of Zen Buddhist monks who perfected their skills (“outer progress”) every bit a way to “inner development” [paper]. But today, the flute is used primarily for playing secular music amongst no to a greater extent than spiritual engagement than i would experience inwards laying downward a synthesized rap track. The message to convey from this, however, is non whether nosotros utilisation applied scientific discipline every bit an musical instrument for spiritual or secular production (this refers to a greater extent than to the objects that applied scientific discipline carries, e.g. the document on the screen), but whether the experience of using that applied scientific discipline is itself aiding inner development.

Another crucial work amongst Bell’s interpretation is that she tacitly accepts the notion that applied scientific discipline is inescapably disruptive to spiritual “stillness”, too that nosotros require to pattern roughly this tension. H5N1 electrochemical cell that is “sensitive” to prayer times too cleverly does non interrupt exclusively highlights this tension. So does Stuart Walker’s electrochemical cell pattern [link]: a telephone that comes inwards pieces inwards a handbag that i must get together every fourth dimension i wishes to build a telephone call, the sentiment beingness this reinforces mindfulness, too the implication beingness that applied scientific discipline challenges spirituality yesteryear producing the opposite. But if nosotros follow this pattern logic to its inevitable conclusion, nosotros volition halt upwards advocating to a provide to prehistoric stone too stick technology. This does non appear the answer. Are spirituality too applied scientific discipline actually irreconcilable?

The showtime challenge is to define the spirituality nosotros seek. One interpretation would live on to abide by ways of catalyzing people to invest technologies amongst a assort of spiritual reverence, every bit a grouping of monks did inwards Ithaca when they blessed the Internet inwards social club to create greater positive too fewer negative manifestations through its utilisation [book]. But the shortcomings of this approach is that (a) it does goose egg to touching on the person-to-technology experience, too (b) i tin easily come across this build of spirituality degenerating into cult-like worship of technological commodities, such every bit the iPad (a demeanour I would depict every bit “new totemism” [book]). An altogether dissimilar approach is technoshamanism [link], which hails applied scientific discipline every bit the way to personal transformation through the artificial heightening of our senses. Intriguing, to live on sure, but this does non duo the rift betwixt spirituality too technological engagement inwards the mundane, non-psychedelic, daily experiences such every bit sending an e-mail or surfing the Internet.

Perhaps insight tin live on gleaned from agreement those at the opposite halt of the spectrum. Posthumanists, a.k.a. transhumanists [paper, paper], for example, combat that applied scientific discipline has removed the require for the trunk at all, since a human beingness “can live on understood every bit a form of machine” [book]. While this seems to convey technological evolution to its absurd conclusion, such that many would recoil at the thought, sociologists such every bit Borgmann [book] would combat that applied scientific discipline has move “the way inwards which nosotros today convey upwards the world;” too yesteryear appropriating our globe through technology, nosotros laid about to manifest the characteristics of our technology, making us ever to a greater extent than computer-like, ever less human, ultimately creating our ain artificial tidings [book] too subjugating – or “reverse adapting” (Langdon Winner, inwards Borgmann) – our ain values to that of the applied scientific discipline nosotros create (e.g. immediacy, simultaneity, contingency, subjectivity, disposability, too speed).

In a manifesto entitled “You Are Not H5N1 Gadget,” Jaron Lanier [book] rails against the unintended trial of for sure technological pattern decisions whose impact was magnified over time, namely that “the deep pregnant of personhood is beingness reduced yesteryear illusions of bits.” It is a distressing dry reason of affairs that someone must disillusion us from our cultural psychosis whereby nosotros retrieve ourselves to live on machines, but it does appear we’ve confused ourselves utterly. Lanier describes our province of affairs thusly: “Spirituality is committing suicide. Consciousness is attempting to volition itself out of existence.” He implores us to human activity urgently, earlier nosotros aspect upwards technological “lock in,” when nosotros are both technically incapable of designing differently too mentally incapable of imagining applied scientific discipline tin live on different. This is inwards contrast to David Orban’s laissez-faire mental attitude toward “The Internet of Things,” which he believes volition build itself redundant yesteryear making the human irrelevant, eventually forming “their ain independent social networks,” which volition inwards fourth dimension gratis us to i time once again live on human [link]. But this begs the question: is at that topographic point no promise inwards the meantime? Are nosotros actually resigned to beingness inwards limbo for the foreseeable future?

There are profound questions nosotros must enquire ourselves every bit nosotros approach what may really good live on a point-of-no-return. How do nosotros desire to experience our world? Have nosotros outlived the require for spirituality inwards our lives? - or receive got nosotros exactly allowed our applied scientific discipline to convince us of this? There has been buzz roughly the phrase “A Secular Age” [book], every bit if it describes a dry reason of advanced human evolution beyond superstition . But to deny our spirituality is to deny our humanness, too nosotros should never live on too so naïve every bit to retrieve ourselves every bit fundamentally “different” from our ancestors. I shall conclude amongst this department amongst the next poignant quote from novelist Annie Dillard [book]:

There were no formerly heroic times, too at that topographic point was no formerly pure generation. There is no i hither but us chickens, too and so it has ever been: a people busy too powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful, too self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive, too conquer; who pray for their loved ones, too long to flee misery too skip death. It is a weakening too discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally i time upon a fourth dimension – or fifty-fifty knew selflessness or courage or literature – but that it is every bit good belatedly for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone inwards every age. There never was a to a greater extent than holy historic menstruum than ours, too never a less.

See, the argue nosotros must endeavor to build the experience of technological engagement to a greater extent than spiritual, to a greater extent than soul-satisfying, is non because without this human life volition move devoid of spirituality; on the contrary, it is because spirituality fulfills an enduring human need, too unless applied scientific discipline begins to address these needs, to build feel every bit business office of our spiritual engagement amongst the world, it volition move utterly redundant.