In opposition to Kurzweil ( see previous post) are some Catholic Theologians, most notably Joseph Ratzinger (Now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI), who argue that the dignity of man needs to be defended in this world of technology. When forming their argument on the relation and of man and technology, these Catholic Theologians, first listen to the facts of human biology and the history of technological advances and then point to the agreement with those truths developed or revealed in both philosophy and theology. The first principles of this argument, as presented in the book In the Beginning by Joseph Ratzinger, are found in the two creation narratives that open the book of Genesis.

The technocrats, in order to help bolster their arguments that man is a machine, turn to the history of technological development and not only compare it to but say it is a part of Evolution. One such technocrat is Ray Kurzweil, inventor of the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, and the first music synthesizer to faithfully recreate several orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition software and recipient of the MIT-Lemelson Prize and the National Medal of Technology. In his book The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil argues that Evolution demonstrates a law of this particular universe “The law of accelerating returns,” that is, that lasting or meaningful patterns develop into better meaningful patterns at an exponential rate and that the end of Evolution is universal intelligence. He then place man as a key component of Evolution as being the first meaningful pattern that both recognizes and analyzes meaningful patterns. For Kurzweil, Man’s drive to develop technology arises from the evolutionary urge to develop better meaningful patterns and that Man, because he is hingepin upon which the rise of a better meaningful pattern, will eventually merge with that better pattern, just as single cell organisms merged to become multi-cellular organisms. This will happen since, according to Kurzweil, reality is purely composed of meaningful patterns of information.

After watching the Eyeborg Documentary,  I thought, as probably many who watched this video, that technology is a wonderful tool. Just look at those disabled people and how robotic prosthetics have allowed them to live nearly normal lives and look at the lives we will save with tools like the fireman’s heads-up-display(HUD). How could such technology threaten us with the loss of our human dignity?

I thought about posting long technical descriptions of each device, but this video sums up what I said in my thesis very well.

Next post will be a deeper investigation of the merging of man and machine.

Throughout written history, primitive and technologically stagnant civilizations slavishly hold superstitious beliefs and practices while advanced and technologically dynamic civilizations cast aside such superstitions as irrational or unnecessary. When an advanced civilization meets a primitive civilization, conflict often arises, as the primitive civilization rejects the technologically enhanced knowledge of the advanced civilization as some false or disordered superstition. The Jesuits report a conflict of this kind in their relations written during the French Colonization of Canada between 1617 and 1791. Desiring to spread the Catholic faith and learn more about the American Indians, the Jesuits found themselves in direct conflict with the Indian medicine men during an outbreak of those European diseases to which the Indians were extremely susceptible. The medicine-men used lies and tricks to maintain or increase control over the tribe during these outbreaks and the Jesuits often stepped in to stop the ridiculous ceremonies in order to administer real treatment and prove the claims of the medicine-men false. In one account, a Jesuit tried to give orders for the treatment of an Indian child suffering from a fever.  The medicine-man who was present said, “That is very good for you people but, for us, it is thus that we cure our sick” and proceeded to beat a tambourine and blow all over the child’s body. The parents of the child, however, took into account the priest’s recommendations and, upon the child’s recovery, came and thanked him for his help Using more advanced medical treatments, the Jesuits discounted the superstitions on which the power and control of the medicine-men relied, weakening and embittering them. As seen in this account, technological advance led to the rejection of superstition. However, as superstitions fall by the wayside, an increasingly compelling current of thought forms that all things spiritual, including those which are truly moral and holy, are irrational and only that which can be corroborated through scientific experiment or computation is reasonable. This current of thought questions that very existence of man’s moral dignity which Joseph Ratzinger warns must be defended. Is Ratzinger right in his warning, or is he a medicine-man whom technology will eventually prove wrong?

This is the first post in a series concerning the proper use of technology and is meant to act as a threshing floor for my Bachelor of Arts thesis. I was inspired to write about this topic from a homily, given by Cardinal Ratzinger at Regensburg and published in the book “In the Beginning….": A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, concerning the Catholic understanding of the nature of man. In that homily, Benedict said “The fate of all of us depends on whether this moral dignity of the human person can be defended in the world of technology, with all its possibilities.” This statement has inspired me to explore how the dignity of the human person - that he is made in the image and likeness of God - could be defended in our age. Of course, the “world of technology”  is much too large to be properly covered in a Bachelor thesis, so I have decided to limit the scope strictly to electro-mechanical augmentations, such as prosthetic limbs, artificial eyes, and brain interfaces. (Yes, they all exist.)

For some this makes no sense. How can someone call himself Catholic and associate himself with such groups as Anonymous and LulzSec? But Anonymous and LulzSec are not the whole picture when it comes to hackers.

The term “hacker” was invented in the 1960s by a group of students at MIT, and they defined a hacker as “a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary."(Jargon File) It was only during the 1980s, after a wave of crimes due to stolen, lost, or corrupted computer data was labeled by the media as the work of “hackers” that the term morphed into its currently narrow definition of “computer criminal.” Since some of those who initially came up with the term “hacker” are still alive and most are still a force in the computing community, I prefer to stick with the original definition.