When we need something written, we hire a writer. When we need something developed, we hire a programmer / designer, etc. This is the same way we use technology (i.e., use a word processor for typing, Photoshop/Illustrator for graphic design, etc. We bind with the technology we use; we need to think like the technology we are using to maximize its (and our!) potential; and we need to understand the technology we are using to be able to apply it in different environments. So, although we are not the technology in and of itself, we become avatars of the technology and tools that we use. In a weird symbiotic way, we are at the very least, a ligament or organ of technology. The brain is not a person. An arm is not a person. However, to argue that brains and arms in relation to people are not akin to wires and microchips in relation to technology seems like wasted energy.

One last thought… people have claimed for thousands of years that we were created by god, yet god resides in each one of us (a sort of macrocosm/microcosm relationship). Could it not be said then, that people created technology, yet technology has us inside each and every device/tool?

Mark

I follow your vision and agree with you. Tools? They are just mechanisms to help us. That’s what tools (and presumably technology) are made for and have been all about.

But, that we are the technology? If you include our ancestors in all of that “we” then yes, but we stand on the shoulders of giants with the tools in the same way as we do with the ideas.

Catchya later

I’m inclined to agree with Howard here.

But, I’d be one of those who advocate that technology doesn’t change the brain, at least in the way some would have us believe. And Howard may not like to associate with someone who thinks that way.

It seems that the whole issue stems from this word ‘change’.

Of course learning to use a tennis racquet or a computer is going to change the brain. Of course we did some things differently before we knew how to use a computer to do the same or similar tasks. The fact is, we have learnt something by using these technologies. Learning changes the brain, let’s not deny it. Teachers and professors the world over spend their hours devising test papers to prove just that. If they weren’t hoping for a change happening in the brains of their students, there would be no need to test them.

Whether we learn to write our books with a Dictaphone, typewriter or ball-point pen makes no difference. Each way learnt changes the brain. There’s even evidence to suggest that the technology used in writing the book has some bearing on the way we might write it. That’s because the brain does alter the way it thinks depending on the technology used for recording thought. No doubt that using a mobile phone to write a book imparts its own nuance to the finished article for the same reason. So it’s clearly understandable how using (present day) technology will put its stamp on whatever we do – even the way we think while doing it.

But to make some great thing out of technology changing the brain such that the changes can be (in any small way) compared to those changes brought about through evolutionary development is gilding the lily a bit. Even to mention evolutionary change in the brain’s way of functioning is suggestive that this might just be attributed to the wonderful semigod-like stuff we call technology.

Frankly, I think we are becoming a bit anthropocentric. We are so full of the idea of being human that we even want to subsume the technology into our being. One writer recently claimed that we ARE the technology. If we were the technology, we wouldn’t have to spend hours learning how to use the different and new devices that we may be confronted with all the time. There wouldn’t be posts complaining about having to choose from the 101 different apps that can all do the same thing.

The brain is a wonderful organ, there is no doubt about that. That our technology helps us do things (perhaps) better, quicker, more accurately, you name it, is a tribute to humankind and the development of technology. I agree with all of that. But let’s not be any more anthropocentric. Let our brains follow their own evolutionary pattern, a path that has taken perhaps millions of years to get them to where we are today.

Catchya later