I see Dots with Halos...

On a comfortable, and pleasantly clear, summer night, I found myself waiting for some one, alone, in my car. So I decided to recline my seat, open the sun-roof, and just look at the stars for a bit. The sky was pretty clear, but as I was on the KSU campus, there was a lot of light pollution.

I was, however, able to see a few stars. Only... They didn't look like stars. At least, not like I remember seeing stars. Instead of stars, what I saw were these little dots. Perfect, round, little dots. And each dot was surrounded by a little halo. And the space between the halo and the dot was filled with a haze of some sort.

No, these did not resemble stars at all.





After some preponderance, I came to the conclusion that this "halo effect" must have been caused by my contact lenses. To test my theory, I glanced up at the night sky wearing my glasses. Sure enough, regular stars.

So what does this have to do with cybernetics? The modification of Humanity. Or, more appropriately, the changing of the definition of a Human being.

Am I saying that by wearing contacts, I'm not a Human Being? No, not at all. But let's expand on this idea a little bit. When I wear the contacts, although they are not a permanent addition to my body, there are very, VERY close to my favorite two organs, the eyes. They are attached to me, in a way glasses never could be.

PLEASE NOTE: While discussing the history of the Human Species, I am going to use a time-frame reference based on the theory of evolution. However, this does not necessarily reflect my personal beliefs regarding creationism vs. evolution. I decided to pick just one school of thought for this discussion so that I would not need to keep referring to both time frames. I chose this one since it is accepted by the scientific community, and this blog, while dealing with religion, philosophy, and ethics (in future posts, anyway), is based on cybernetics, which is a technology. And technology, of course, is the lovechild resulting of the sorded love affair between Science and Necessity.

Imagine, for a moment, that my contact lenses were permanent. (Some people wear their contacts constantly. Also, it is possible that some current ocular implants create a similar effect). So, if we imagine that there was some sort of implant that I had permanently placed in my eyes to correct my vision that have the same "halo" side-effect, then I can begin to illustrate my point.

For the past 200,000 years or so, humans have looked up at the night sky and seen stars. And when they did, they saw tiny, shimmering points of light. And the lights had little lines stemming from their centers. This image has been with us since before Homo sapiens first arrived. It has shaped our way of thinking as evidenced by it's usage in different religions throughout our existence. The Star of David, the Pentagram, the star the Three Wise Men followed.

Every human being, who's vision was good enough to see the stars, has seen the same image.

This is significant, because, we, by definition, are a creature, that views stars as little shimmering points of light surrounded by tiny rays of starlight. It is a tiny, minute, and seemingly mundane little change, but it's important. It's important because it's part of who we are. It is part of what defines us as human beings. So, in addition to surgically changing what our bodies are made out of, we can also change the way we perceive our environment. We can change the image of something, as it exists in our mind's eye.

Imagine now, that a large portion of humanity has had this operation done to repair vision. Let's say, 50% or more. That's almost three and a half billion people! We would have to change our children's story books, our Christmas tree decorations, our religous symbols, our national flags.

Even while imagining this scenario, I doubt that there are many people who would say that those who do not see pointy stars, but instead see halo'ed stars, are some how non-human. On the surface, it's not that significant of a change. But we must examine the changes that may occure on a deeper level.

That being said, let me changes gears for a moment. I'll go from eyes to ears.

The first commercially available cybernetics will focus on communication, and they will be as revolutionary as the cell phone. I'm making the assumption on the current trend of ever improving cellular technology. Cell phones are getting smaller, lighter, and more powerful. But more importantly, they're blending with our lives seamlessly. Case in point, the Bluetooth headset. Bluetooth headsets are those little plastic thingies you see everyone wearing clipped onto their ears. You know the people I'm talking about. They're... uh, we're, those people walking around seemingly talking to ourselves, or our imaginary friend. It's not just the convenience, or added safety, that's important here. What is important is what this technology enables us to do.

In the beginning of the telecommunications age, people had to actually hold the phone, or parts of it, up to their face in order to talk. They had to turn a crank, or dial a number, or press some buttons in order for the device to connect them. The phone was originally some piece of hardware attached to the wall or on a desk that you had to walk up to and use. It was a part of the room you were standing in, like furniture. Speaker phones were a small improvement, but you basically still had to be next to a stationary device wired into the building to use it. With the cordless phone, we could take the device with us into different parts of the house with us, but it was still a part of that particular building. Cell phones, it seems, were the first real step in the right direction. Whether you put them in your pocket, or clip them to your belt or jeans, these things are as much a part of us as our cars, or our glasses, or our watches. I never leave home without it. Hell, I never leave a room without it!

"So what's the big deal?" you ask. "It's just a cell phone, right?" Wrong. Well, kinda. With a cell phone come smany features other than plane old voice communicaitons. You have, at the touch of your fingers, things like text messages to update you on your frineds activities, sports scores, weather updates, or even emergencey or safety information. There is also email, instant messengers, the internet, and streaming live TV and radio. And the reason all of these little add-ons are important is because they modify our behaviour.

the changes are thus far seemingly minute, but I believe that they have a larger impact than we realize. Since life began, creatures had to seek one another out in order to communicate thoughts or ideas. With the telecommunicaitons infastructure, we have changed that. But with the things like Personal Area Network, it goes a little further than convienence.

And now, I'm going to commit age discrimination. Please, world, forgive me. If you are reading these words - and thank you if you are - and are saying to yourself that you are not so enammered with your cell phone, then perhaps you are not my target demographic. But please, do not stop reading. Just stay with me a moment longer.

You have heard of the generation gap? Part of this phenomena is older generations having more knowledge on certain "practical" topics, such as how to perform certain mechanical or farming tasks, than the younger generations. They are unable to impart this knowledge on the younger crowd because, as society rapidly changes, there are less and less things that the elders have knowledge of that the youth wish to know. (There are other factors as well, especially differences in how they communicate.)

The Generation Lapse, similar to the Digital Divide, is the same phenomena, but in the other direction. What I mean is, the youth has much more information on technology than the elder generation. And not only that, they also have access to the internet, which means they have a wealth of information on every conceivable topic. So, while my little brother might not know how to adjust the idle air control valve on the carburator of a Mustang, for example, he does know how to Google it. And if he can do that, he can know how to make those adjustments in a matter of minutes.

So now ask yourself: Do I know some one (probably younger than me) who seems to have their cell phone / smart phone glued to their heads? Or, maybe, they're glued to a computer keyboard? It's because they are addicted to that connectivity. They're addicted to the information, the functunality, and communication. This addiction is key; it's behavior modification.

In the past, if I had a question, about the maple leaf, for example, I only had a few choices. I could, for example, go out to the woods, find a maple tree, collect some leaves from it, break out the magnifying glass, etc. This would be great, but so time consuming that I would probably never get around to it, and therefore I would never have my answer. Option two: I could ask some one. I would, of course, have to approach some one, open my mouth, and express my quest for knowledge to them verbally, all the while knowing that this person is going to be thinking about the silliness of the question that I am asking, and using this information to form his or her opinion of me. AND THE ANSWER MIGHT NOT EVEN BE CORRECT! (Don't get me wrong, I am all for the good ol' fashioned conversation between two human beings. I'm just sayin'...) And this also is somewhat time consuming, and probably happening at three in the morning when every one else that I know is sound asleep. Or option three: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_leaf Did you click the link? Well, whether or not you did, my point is that clicking that link is all I would have to do to get my answer. And don't forget that once I read my answer, I retain that information in my own little brain, to recall whenever I need it. I can also refer to it, as time goes by and my memory of the answer becomes fuzzy. And I can impart this information upon others, referring to the link so that they may read the article in its entirety, if they so choose.

"But wait, Tony, aren't you forgetting something? What about a library?" I am so very glad you asked me that question. I think that if you are asking me this question, it means one of two things. A: You are of an older generation that is not as accustomed to our technophilia. B: You are post Generation-X, but you're not as in love and in tune with the gadgetopia. And this excites me, because now I think I can adequately express to you the magnitude of importance a smart phone, cell phone, laptop, netbook, desktop, PDA, or any device with access to the web has to the human psyche.

My smart phone, for many intents and purposes, IS a library! This little piece of metal and plastic, that I carry in my pocket, is a library. A whole library district. I can find a book, or put one on hold from another library in the county, state, or even another country, and I don't have to wait. It's right there right now now now! Bam bam bam! Instant Information! Sure, I don't have that personalized touch of a librarian, but with voice communication, instant message, etc. I can get pretty damn close.

However, my point is not about how cell phones are replacing libraries. (I was at the public library today, by the way) They're not. My reason for describing this connection is to illustrate one of the intermediate steps between man and machine that we've already taken.

Above, I wrote this: "The first commercially available cybernetics will focus on communication, and they will be as revolutionary as the cell phone." And now I hope that you can understand just what kind of an impact cellular communication has had.

I spoke of this transition from extroverted conversation to introverted web searching as a transition to a future step. Before I expand on that, I would like to point out that, although keeping to ones self and typing away on a cell phone is introverted, but at the same time, extroverted. While it is true that a person who is using their BlackBerry to find out how syrup is made may be sitting silently in the corner, ignoring everyone in the room, they may be taking place in a global conversation on their device. How more extroverted can one be?

(Extroverts and introverts will be a topic for later)

A transition from man to machine. We may imagine humans, fifty, or more likely, one hundred years in the future, having many electronic and prosthetic additions. And I, for one, imagine that those humans will simply think of learning about, for instance, a maple leaf, and then being presented with, for instance, a Wikipedia article on maple leaves. Or perhaps the result is not an article to be read, but simply the presence of the existential information one would have gained from the act of reading aforementioned article. Or, even better, the presence of the knowledge gained by the individuals who obtained the first hand knowledge used to write the article in the first place, like the botanists who study maple leaves.

And there you have it. In the future, I can think of something, like the intricate workings of an automatic transmission, and within moments, I am an expert. Kind of a long post just to say that, isn't it? This post, really, was designed to express to people not in the know, how human integrated connectivity will be the next step in our evolution. An evolution brought to you by electronics and cell phone companies. An evolution not brought on by nature, or by God, but by humanity.

In my next post, I will discuss, again, communication. (Maybe I should title it "Ad Nausium") This post discussed the first step, a little. My next will focus on the eventual virtual telepathy that we will all experience, how we will interface with this technology, and what problems are likely to arise. I hope to culminate this first section with the common vision of a full cyborg. From there, I will discuss solely the philosophical and ethical ramifications of such a society.

So I hope you are looking forward to my next post "Our Virtual Telepathy: Battling Closed Shell Syndrome and Extreme Introversion".