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Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines
"Self-forgetfulness is the reigning temptation of the technological era. This is why we so readily give our assent to the absurd proposition that a computer can add two plus two, despite the obvious fact that it can do nothing of the sort--not if we have in mind anything remotely resembling what we do when we add numbers. In the computer's case, the mechanics of addition involve no motivation, no consciousness of the task, no mobilization of the will, no metabolic activity, no imagination. And its performance brings neither the satisfaction of accomplishment nor the strengthening of practical skills and cognitive capacities."
In this insightful book, author Steve Talbott, software programmer and technical writer turned researcher and editor for The Nature Institute, challenges us to step back and take an objective look at the technology driving our lives. At a time when 65 percent of American consumers spend more time with their PCs than they do with their significant others, according to a recent study, Talbott illustrates that we're forgetting one important thing--our Selves, the human spirit from which technology stems.
Whether we're surrendering intimate details to yet another database, eschewing our physical communities for online social networks, or calculating our net worth, we freely give our power over to technology until, he says, "we arrive at a computer's-eye view of the entire world of industry, commerce, and society at large...an ever more closely woven web of programmed logic."
Digital technology certainly makes us more efficient. But when efficiency is the only goal, we have no way to know whether we're going in the right or wrong direction. Businesses replace guiding vision with a spreadsheet's bottom line. Schoolteachers are replaced by the computer's dataflow. Indigenous peoples give up traditional skills for the dazzle and ease of new gadgets. Even the Pentagon's zeal to replace "boots on the ground" with technology has led to the mess in Iraq. And on it goes.
The ultimate danger is that, in our willingness to adapt ourselves to technology, "we will descend to the level of the computational devices we have engineered--not merely imagining ever new and more sophisticated automatons, but reducing ourselves to automatons."
To transform our situation, we need to see it in a new and unaccustomed light, and that's what Talbott provides by examining the deceiving virtues of technology--how we're killing education, socializing our machines, and mechanizing our society. Once you take this eye-opening journey, you will think more clearly about how you consume technology and how you allow it to consume you.
"Nothing is as rare or sorely needed in our tech-enchanted culture right now as intelligent criticism of technology, and Steve Talbott is exactly the critic we've been waiting trenchant, sophisticated, and completely original. Devices of the Soul is an urgent and important book."
--Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's A Natural History of Four Meals and The Botany of A Plant's Eye View of the World
"Steve Talbott is a rare voice of clarity, humanity, and passion in a world enthralled by machines and calculation. His new book, Devices of the Soul, lays out a frightening and at the same time inspiring analysis of what computers and computer-like thinking are doing to us, our children, and the future of our planet. Talbott is no Luddite. He fully understands and appreciates the stunning power of technology for both good and evil. His cool and precise skewering of the fuzzy thinking and mindless enthusiasm of the technology true believers is tempered by his modesty, the elegance of his writing, and his abiding love for the world of nature and our capacity for communion with it. "
--Edward Miller, Former editor, Harvard Education Letter
"Those who care about the healthy and wholesome lives of children can gain much from Steve Talbott's wisdom. He examines the need to help children spend more time touching nature and real life and less touching keyboards. He eloquently questions the assumption that speeding up learning is a good thing. Is, after all, a sped-up life a well-lived life? Most importantly, he reminds all of us that technology is just one part of life and ought not to overshadow the life of self and soul."
--Joan Almon, Coordinator, Alliance for Childhood
"One of the most original and provocative writers of our time, Steve Talbott offers a rich assortment of insightful reflections on the nature of our humanity, challenging our own thinking and conventional wisdom about advances in technology."
--Dorothy E. Denning, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA
"Are you experiencing growing unease as computational metaphors have seized our discourse? Steve Talbott offers immediate relief. You are not losing your mind! Chapter after chapter, he shows how to draw on the powers of technology without losing your soul or breaking your heart."
--P...
In this insightful book, author Steve Talbott, software programmer and technical writer turned researcher and editor for The Nature Institute, challenges us to step back and take an objective look at the technology driving our lives. At a time when 65 percent of American consumers spend more time with their PCs than they do with their significant others, according to a recent study, Talbott illustrates that we're forgetting one important thing--our Selves, the human spirit from which technology stems.
Whether we're surrendering intimate details to yet another database, eschewing our physical communities for online social networks, or calculating our net worth, we freely give our power over to technology until, he says, "we arrive at a computer's-eye view of the entire world of industry, commerce, and society at large...an ever more closely woven web of programmed logic."
Digital technology certainly makes us more efficient. But when efficiency is the only goal, we have no way to know whether we're going in the right or wrong direction. Businesses replace guiding vision with a spreadsheet's bottom line. Schoolteachers are replaced by the computer's dataflow. Indigenous peoples give up traditional skills for the dazzle and ease of new gadgets. Even the Pentagon's zeal to replace "boots on the ground" with technology has led to the mess in Iraq. And on it goes.
The ultimate danger is that, in our willingness to adapt ourselves to technology, "we will descend to the level of the computational devices we have engineered--not merely imagining ever new and more sophisticated automatons, but reducing ourselves to automatons."
To transform our situation, we need to see it in a new and unaccustomed light, and that's what Talbott provides by examining the deceiving virtues of technology--how we're killing education, socializing our machines, and mechanizing our society. Once you take this eye-opening journey, you will think more clearly about how you consume technology and how you allow it to consume you.
"Nothing is as rare or sorely needed in our tech-enchanted culture right now as intelligent criticism of technology, and Steve Talbott is exactly the critic we've been waiting trenchant, sophisticated, and completely original. Devices of the Soul is an urgent and important book."
--Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's A Natural History of Four Meals and The Botany of A Plant's Eye View of the World
"Steve Talbott is a rare voice of clarity, humanity, and passion in a world enthralled by machines and calculation. His new book, Devices of the Soul, lays out a frightening and at the same time inspiring analysis of what computers and computer-like thinking are doing to us, our children, and the future of our planet. Talbott is no Luddite. He fully understands and appreciates the stunning power of technology for both good and evil. His cool and precise skewering of the fuzzy thinking and mindless enthusiasm of the technology true believers is tempered by his modesty, the elegance of his writing, and his abiding love for the world of nature and our capacity for communion with it. "
--Edward Miller, Former editor, Harvard Education Letter
"Those who care about the healthy and wholesome lives of children can gain much from Steve Talbott's wisdom. He examines the need to help children spend more time touching nature and real life and less touching keyboards. He eloquently questions the assumption that speeding up learning is a good thing. Is, after all, a sped-up life a well-lived life? Most importantly, he reminds all of us that technology is just one part of life and ought not to overshadow the life of self and soul."
--Joan Almon, Coordinator, Alliance for Childhood
"One of the most original and provocative writers of our time, Steve Talbott offers a rich assortment of insightful reflections on the nature of our humanity, challenging our own thinking and conventional wisdom about advances in technology."
--Dorothy E. Denning, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA
"Are you experiencing growing unease as computational metaphors have seized our discourse? Steve Talbott offers immediate relief. You are not losing your mind! Chapter after chapter, he shows how to draw on the powers of technology without losing your soul or breaking your heart."
--P...
281 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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78 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 21, 2009
I'm partway through this collection of essays, and it's enthralling. There's so much to digest. This is criticism the way it's supposed to be, not rejecting technology outright, nor wholly embracing the anti-technological viewpoint, but subjecting both to analysis and coming up with true insight and wisdom in the process. His optimism is also reassuring.
August 3, 2007
A thoughtful and penetrating account of the perils of inebriation with technology. Talbott reaches out for a humane response to the technological society, and in the process delivers some vivid polemics against a variety of idolatries associated with technology.
October 18, 2012
One of the rare books that leaves you intellectually exhausted, and mentally transformed at the same time. This book really changed the way I see technology, machines and people.
I would not recommend this book to readers who prefer simplistic ideas, who are afraid to delve into deep stuff and understand profound thoughts. This would freak you out.
However, if you are a reader who thrives on absorbing such materials, then this book is for you!
I would not recommend this book to readers who prefer simplistic ideas, who are afraid to delve into deep stuff and understand profound thoughts. This would freak you out.
However, if you are a reader who thrives on absorbing such materials, then this book is for you!
October 3, 2008
Extremely interesting philosophical work by a man with no formal training in philsophy.
March 3, 2014
Excellent treatment of the interactions between technology and us, focusing on the dangers when everything works, not when things go wrong.
September 23, 2018
I’m a bit conflicted still on how I feel about the arguments circling around technology being as they are programmed and not necessarily capable of learning or growing out of that. I do like the sentiments against humans reduced to machines and why we might have that view. I feel like there are a few tangents that weren’t exactly completely on topic but just something the author wanted to assert which might have lowered my rating if I had not 100% agreed w them and cheered them on as they went off that trail. Definitely a thought provoking read
January 8, 2010
There are many things I liked in this book; many other arguments he made that made my teeth hurt. I can't deal with another anti-technology book that brings up Plato, Jung and Joseph Campbell! I have the same problems with this book that I have with Bill McKibbon, Alice Waters and the entire "Slow Anything" crew (assuming the reader has the same point of view, muddied arguing, corniness, near-total ignorance of/disregard for global economic forces and modernism) only less so. I would however recommend it to anyone interested in the impact of technology on individuals and society: Steve Talbott has obviously done a lot of deep thinking on the subject and I overall got a lot of value out of these chapters.
Talbott does unfortunately again and again make the same mistake he accuse radical technologists of: he mistakes the robots and machines for their makers, focusing on various technologies (HAL and Kismet) and their dubious social impact rather than on the values and social processes that informed their development.
Talbott does unfortunately again and again make the same mistake he accuse radical technologists of: he mistakes the robots and machines for their makers, focusing on various technologies (HAL and Kismet) and their dubious social impact rather than on the values and social processes that informed their development.
January 28, 2009
Steve Talbott successfully has authored a book that examines the nature of humanity in the Information Age. How do people retain their unique identities when "intelligence" can now be manufactured in a factory and even constructed to physically mimic a human being?
Talbott cites examples of many people who have great faith in God, in answering the "battle cry" for "our selves in an age of machines". While the author falls just short of recognizing (at least explicitly) the incredible value of that faith in defining our humanity, the examples nevertheless, speak for themselves.
This is one of the few "non-technology" books that I reviewed for a technology venue, in this case, Linux Pro Magazine. If you have the self-awareness to find the book's concept intriguing, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy.
Talbott cites examples of many people who have great faith in God, in answering the "battle cry" for "our selves in an age of machines". While the author falls just short of recognizing (at least explicitly) the incredible value of that faith in defining our humanity, the examples nevertheless, speak for themselves.
This is one of the few "non-technology" books that I reviewed for a technology venue, in this case, Linux Pro Magazine. If you have the self-awareness to find the book's concept intriguing, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy.
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December 10, 2008deliberating for a long time... pure awesomeness that it is in eloquent book form to describe the unknown knowledge within us to bring into acknowledgment and thus power.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews