tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post309810204657423861..comments2023-08-17T06:06:23.531-04:00Comments on Ibo et Non Redibo: Eric McLuhan on The New CultureJohn Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07309411001384211788noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post-64496542741020790132013-07-21T16:39:59.344-04:002013-07-21T16:39:59.344-04:00With regards to the noosphere, Teilhard was clear ...With regards to the noosphere, Teilhard was clear that its positive development not only preserves but enhances personhood and personality. It occurs through charity. I haven't read what he had to say about “electronic consciousness“, but Teilhard did reject social movements where the individual is lost: hence his forthright disapproval of Marxism and similar forms of socialism. (It should also be pointed out that the noosphere for Teilhard is not a new phenomenon, but appeared along with the emergence of the human species.)Adam D. Hincks, S.J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/09317894445176628003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post-65365448995599981032013-07-21T02:11:14.425-04:002013-07-21T02:11:14.425-04:00Thanks for your great points, Dr. Kuskis, which be...Thanks for your great points, Dr. Kuskis, which bear much consideration. The Internet is bringing about much that is good. MOOCs (massive open online courses) are but one example, especially for the poor or those geographically distant from prestigious schools that create them. There is much that is up for debate here, especially for educators. It's almost at the point where we might ask whether we should have classes at all!: better teachers have taught the same material and made it available to all practically free-of-charge online. It comes back, I believe to less a question of incarnational reality, and more that of relationality or relationship. I think we'll agree that learning is more than - to use the computer metaphor - the mere transfer or downloading of information, but a complex process that involves the "relating" of knowledge and an experience of absorption or learning. I'm sure this can be done well through online courses, but my confidence is greater in graduate students where there's already a more "formed" and disciplined learner at the other end.<br /><br />Books and print media are disembodied knowledge, I agree. Concerns over the Internet's ascendancy in the social and cognitive spheres are legitimate, however, and at least deserve some attention. Carr describes many of them in "The Shallows": lowered attention spans, literacy, long-term memory retention, contemplative capacity, and so on. I don't know the future, but if each new class of post-secondary students are any indication, the trend seems to be towards a lowering of these capacities. All I argue myself is that we have enough perspective on what our devices and their platforms are asking of us. McLuhan encourages us to "pay attention". Some anti-enviornment can go a long way to helping us remain free individuals who exercise intellect and will in our use of electronic media, so that they serve to contribute to the enhancement of our humanity.<br /><br />As for the noosphere of Teilhard de Chardin -- his notions are certainly debatable. McLuhan seems to have parted ways with him regarding enthusiasm for an emerging electronic consciousness. What does a global or cosmic consciousness even look like? What are the implications for personhood when consciousness becomes "one"? -John O. P.S. I greatly enjoy your blog.John Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07309411001384211788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post-1089087162808714732013-06-27T19:32:01.021-04:002013-06-27T19:32:01.021-04:00My apologies for providing the wrong link for noos...My apologies for providing the wrong link for noosphere. It should have been http://www.lawoftime.org/noosphere/theoryandhistory.html . For some reason your blog did not allow me to login via Wordpress, which holds my blog, and logging in via Google identified me with gibberish. My name is Alex Kuskis and I publish the McLuhan Galaxy blog at http://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/ .uAJSdudAUDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15667555031157074216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post-47159221369469097962013-06-27T11:56:31.482-04:002013-06-27T11:56:31.482-04:00Why this concern about discarnate or bodyless medi...Why this concern about discarnate or bodyless mediated communication when we’ve had nearly 600 years of Gutenberg print culture in which writers & readers have been separated and invisible to each other? The Internet is an extension and expansion of that print culture, as well as human consciousness, but is still evolving in an anthropotropic way towards greater lifelikeness, according to Paul Levinson. Internet users are not intelligences sans bodies any more than Shakespeare, Joyce or any author is or was bodyless, except after death. Their texts capture and convey their spirit which is a manifestation of living bodies and all that living bodies can leave behind after death. Internet users, like writers, live locally in a physical world, but can communicate globally with anyone they can connect with, without ever leaving their physical bodies behind. If it wasn’t a concern with books, which mediate authors, why is at concern with the Internet? The Internet is not some monstrous, soulless evocation of a machine world, but the global extension and realization of consciousness that Teilhard de Chardin called the noosphere. See http://www.ibosj.ca/2013/04/eric-mcluhan-on-new-culture.html . uAJSdudAUDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15667555031157074216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post-44660926766116798262013-04-24T14:50:10.976-04:002013-04-24T14:50:10.976-04:00Hi Regina: I don't want to scare anybody (well...Hi Regina: I don't want to scare anybody (well, not too much!). These points of E.M.'s are probably similar to what Marshall McLuhan called "probes" -- provocative statements designed to elicit critical thinking and discussion. The end result of all this, I hope, is greater balance in our lives. Email, social media, etc, all have a positive role to play. We just don't want them to take over the essential of who we are. <br /><br />It's fairly normal for teens to be self-conscious. Our goal in forming them should be encouraging them to have experiences that take them "outside of themselves": encounters with the real, the outdoors, helping others/volunteering... fanning the sparks of altruism that will make them into mature Christians. And lots of faith! -John<br />John Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07309411001384211788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post-77587950328955769712013-04-24T00:03:30.505-04:002013-04-24T00:03:30.505-04:00Wow, John. So the question is: How do we get off ...Wow, John. So the question is: How do we get off the train? I find myself lately saying "I choose silence." And I consciously do so. I always think about the youth, and of course, my own kids. The image, the posing, the awful self-consciousness...I can't imagine having to grow up with that. Don't know the answer - it seems to me if one isn't conscious of all this, one is just bound to get sucked into the addiction. (What an uplifting comment!) regina cateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16815066025083662804noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post-58787987130699071252013-04-18T01:20:55.733-04:002013-04-18T01:20:55.733-04:00I agree. What I think the communications and techn...I agree. What I think the communications and technology philosophers are trying to identify are the liabilities and losses that might get lost in the glow of the media's great and undeniable benefits. McLuhan said "We make our tools, and then our tools make us" -- an invitation to critical reflection if there was one! Thanks. -JohnJohn Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07309411001384211788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841992273882225141.post-90322454933054874792013-04-17T12:25:41.851-04:002013-04-17T12:25:41.851-04:00While it's true that there is a risk associate...While it's true that there is a risk associated with the internet's far-reaching character (point 2), I would argue that we should not underestimate the potential good that can come of this reach. There are tremendous opportunities to educate oneself (reading a blog, for example), and to reach out to others in ways that can be genuinely meaningful, for all that they are not tactile. Any shy person is familiar with the paradox that a party may look incredibly social but feel incredibly isolating (or the other way around), and I think we see that on the internet as well. It has the potential for both harm and benefit.Sarahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06412152839506739379noreply@blogger.com