Read Nicholas Carr's book THE SHALLOWS, Chapters 9 through FINISH.
Then, at our COURSE blog, reflect on the following:
1. Discuss THREE specific observations Carr makes in EACH chapter. Use 2-3 sentences for each observation, and combine his quoted observations with an IYOW analysis.
2. Ask ONE specific question of Carr, after reading all the chapters.
Chapter 9:
ReplyDelete-Now that we have easy access to so much information on the web, actual reading and memorizing is becoming outdated. Carr quotes Peter Suderman who asked, "Why memorize the content of a single book when you could be using your brain to hold a quick guide to an entire library?"
-The process of forgetting has two stages: there are "primary memories", which are memories the mind forgets quickly after the incident that created them. And then there are "secondary memories", which the brain remembers forever.
-Carr reports that the internet is threatening the depth and uniqueness of ourselves as well as our culture. Carr quotes anthropologist Pascal Boyer who says, "What's stored in the individual mind- events, facts, concepts, skills- is more than the "representation of distinctive personhood" that constitutes the self, it's also the "crux of cultural transmission."
Chapter 10:
-Carr states that every tool has it's drawbacks as well as it's possibilities. While the internet is a great way to communicate and find information, we have started to become dependent on it. Carr says, "After working with a word processor for a time, I began to lose my facility for writing and editing in longhand."
-Psychologist Christof van Nimwegan conducted a study in which he had two groups work through a difficult logic puzzle on a computer. One group used software that gave the user assistance while the other group used software that did not give any help. The results showed that the group that used the unhelpful program were able to complete the puzzle more quickly and sufficiently than the opposing group. The study also revealed that those using the unhelpful software were able to plan better and strategize well while the group using the helpful software relied on trial and error.
-Carr believes the internet is affecting humans ability to empathize. Carr says, "It would be rash to jump to the conclusion that the Internet is undermining our moral sense. It would not be rash to suggest that as the Net reroutes our vital paths and diminishes our capacity for contemplation, it is altering the depth of our emotions as well as our thoughts."
QUESTION: What do you think the internets positive or negative effects on humans will be in the future?
Chapter 9
ReplyDeleteThe beginning of chapter 9 extolls some of the virtues of the net, primarily the decreased dependence on memory. Peter Suderman is quoted “rather than memorize information, we now store it digitally and just remember what we stored” (pg. 178). The thrust of this argument is that externally stored facts free up our mind for more critical thinking, creativity and day dreaming.
Carr counters this with an exhaustive description of how primary and secondary memory, the hippocampus, repetition and time for consolidation are all critical in forming long-term memories. Because the Internet demands constant and varied attention, information doesn’t have the time to “stew” in the hippocampus and go through the gradual process of memorization that our biology requires. The argument that our minds are freed by external storage is shown false, as the numerous studies Carr mentions point to memorizing and internalizing as necessary mental exercises for a powerful mind.
This leads to the conclusion that the major difference between the human memory and artificial memory is the plasticity. Artificial memory stores a set of information given to it: the facts are immutable and unchanged from their initial storage. The human memory, colored by a lifetime of experience, recalls events from the past and re-contextualizes them to fit with the current working of the mind. Memory, in the human mind, is meant to be fluid and gradual, whereas CPU memory is meant to be permanent and exact.
Chapter 10
In the 1960s, Joseph Weizenbaum developed a program he called ELIZA, which could interpret a typed conversation and respond to the typist with a surprising degree of accuracy. The program followed a very simple protocol, using the psychologist Carl Rogers’ technique of mimicking statements in the form of a question or focusing in a particular words and phrases to reshape the statement into a question. This early foray into artificial intelligence proved two things: one; that machines can deftly imitate people and two; that people would willingly suspend belief while conversing with ELIZA.
Weizenbaum’s findings disturbed him and led him to question our growing dependence on machinery. His great fear was that, in humanizing machines, we were losing track of what makes a person human. Weizenbaum cautioned that we must balance our dependence on technology with the discipline to perform ourselves “tasks that demand wisdom” (pg. 201).
Carr ends the book with a look at the differences environment can play in our cognition. He looks to Hawthorne’s Sleep Hollow and a study in Psychological Science from 2008 to surmise that our brains “relax” when we are exposed to nature; the working memory is over stimulated in urban settings and leads to weaker memory and learning capabilities. What we risk when depending on the Internet is our ability to think calmly and deeply, an integral part of how our minds process and form memories.
Question: Is there a happy medium? Can we still be deep thinkers and Net users?
CH 9
ReplyDelete-Socrates feared that the written word would lead to a decline in memory. Carr argues that reading enhances memory when people read in a deep reflective manner through taking notes and critical thinking. Carr quotes Erasmus who says that memorization of important passages from books can be used to create a synthesis of all ideas encountered. So-called “common-place books” memory were frequently used by Rennaissance and enlightenment era scholars to memorize important texts.
-In modern times, artificial has overtaken traditional memory. With the rise of the internet, people don’t need to memorize anything as it is at their fingertips. Some argue that the “outsourcing” of our memory to machines is a “liberating” effect, yet Carr disagrees.
-Differences between long and short term memory and how memory is stored
-Long term memory requires almost double the number of synaptic connections, and is different both biochemically and anatomically
-A gene that inhibits the formation of new “terminals” must be switched off by a protein CREB 2.
-Implicit memory is that which is used unconsciously through repeated behaviors such as riding a bike. Explicit memory is what we remember about the past.
-Organic human memory is very different from the memory of a computer. The brain has an almost unlimited amount of space for long term memory. When a long term memory is retrieved, it is updated to the current context. And memorization itself makes learning easier in the future. Short term memory is very scarce and is unable to deal with the massive amount of information on the internet.
-Memory is formed through “repitition” and “intense emotional or intellectual engagement”
-The web’s connections are not your connections as the web merely provides access while the brain memory.
CH 10
-Carr speaks about the numbing effects of technology on the mind and body. Carr references studies which show that software that is most helpful is easier in the short run, but ultimately hinders our ability to think critically and solve problems independently. The software becomes a substitute for learning.
-Carr talks about how the minds natural desire to determine what others are thinking is twisted in the computer age. Our minds our entering a social group with computer programs. Even relatively primitive programs such as ELIZA, which simply take sentences and spit them back into questions, can fool people into believing that they are just like real people.
-Carr shows that even academia has been swimming in the cognitive shallows. The number of citations in scholarly articles has declined significantly despite the easy access to digitally published journals. This is because the search engines will lead people to the most popular results while overlooking related, but less relevant articles which may still contain pertinent information.
Q. How far will people go? How stupid will people get before they alter their internet usage patterns? Is it possible for us to reach a point of no return where we become too stupid to think for ourselves?
Chapter 9
ReplyDeleteThe beginning of chapter 9 argues that with such easy access to information on the internet that memorization has become obsolete. Peter Suderman says that our memory should function as an “index, pointing us to the places on the Web where we can locate the information we need…” In theory the benefit of this “index” memory would be allowing our minds more time to spend on critical thinking and creativity.
Carr debunks this line of thinking, of our brains as a computer, with his explanation of how we form long-term memories. It takes more time to form a long-term memory but recalling that memory updates it to a current context and actually strengthens the brains ability to learn. This idea of “indexing” doesn’t free our minds for more critical thinking, it actually hurts our brains ability to strengthen itself by denying the brain the chance to develop long-term memories.
Through this “outsourcing” of our memory we risk losing the culture that is unique to us as individuals and as a society. As Carr puts it, “To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, and culture withers.”
Chapter 10
Joseph Weizenbaum developed a program called ELIZA, which would interpret a typed sentence and than respond to the typist. He studied how people interacted with ELIZA and discovered that people were very willing to quickly humanize a machine. Weizenbaum believe that through this humanizing of machines people will, “begin to lose our ‘humanness,’ to sacrifice the very qualities that separate us from machines.”
Carr references a study by psychologist Christof van Nimwegan in the basic findings stated that software used made solving the puzzle easier in the short-term but it didn’t actually teach the users how to solve the puzzle. The people without the “helpful” software actually learned how to solve the puzzle through their critical thinking skills and were able to solve the puzzle quicker again months later.
Carr looks at several examples that demonstrate that nature or a “calm” environment creates a “calm, attentive mind” which encourages deep thinking. The internet is not a “calm” environment and doesn’t encourage deep thinking. Critical deep thinking is not the thing under attack from this barrage of information as empathy and compassion also require a calm and attentive mind.
Q: What can we, as Web 2.0 users, do to try and create a “Sleepy Hollow” on the Internet?
Chapter Nine:
ReplyDelete- Even with the increased access to books, because people were allowed to read in their own course and pace, individual memory became more personal and individual than a construct of society. Books supplement memory, so their popularity enabled people to extend their memories in different ways from each other.
- Clive Thompson says that "by offloading data onto silicon, we free our own gray matter for more germanely 'human' tasks like brainstorming and daydreaming." Another writer, David Brooks, describe the same phenomenon as liberating. Our minds are more free to be creative and focus on different aspects of thought.
- In 1980, William James concluded that there are two kinds of memories: primary memories, which are lost quickly once the event that inspired them passes, and secondary memories, which could be retained for an indefinite amount of time. It takes a certain amount of time for a primary memory to be processed into a secondary memory.
Chapter Ten:
- After Weizenbaum created and presented the software ELIZA, three prominent psychiatrists wrote that with "a bit of tweaking," ELIZA could be used to treat mental patients when there was a shortage of psychiatrists. Carr doesn't make any judgmental comments on this, but I found that particular piece of information disturbing: if we can replace therapists with computers, what does that say about therapy?
- The more we use new tools, the more we structure our lives to fit around the tool. We grow dependent on tools because they enable us to do things in more efficient ways, and we become accustomed to how we live with the presence of those tools. Carr says that this explains why he began to have difficulty writing long-hand after using a word processor for some time.
- A big reason why our nervous systems so easily adapt with computers is that evolution has caused our brains to be incredibly concerned with what other people are thinking. "Recent neuroimaging studies indicate that three highly active brain regions are 'specifically dedicated to the task of understanding the goings-on of other people's minds.'" This explains why social media sites have reprogrammed our daily lives. There is a huge consequence though: "The 'chronic overactivity of those brains regions implicated in social thought' can . . . lead us to perceive minds where no minds exist, even in 'inanimate objects.'" This also ties back to ELIZA and how people became emotionally attached to something synthetic.
Question: Do you think computers can and/or will eventually replace the need for physical human interaction sometime in the future?
The beginning of chapter 9 talks about the need for memory, and the fact that, because the internet can answer any question we are vexed with, we only need to keep the knowledge of access in our brains, an 'index', according to Suderman. Our massive intellectual capacity becomes no more than a Google search bar.
ReplyDeleteBecause we require memories to gain experience, Carr argues that using our brain only as a glorified indexing tool is hindering it. Reliance on the machine inhibits our ability to learn from it. We loose the very thing that makes us able to remain at the 'top of the food chain.' If we solely rely on a machine that, in time, won't need to rely on us, we loose our spot.
Chapter 9 ends with a discussion on the difference between short and long-term memory. Short term memory is considered a sort of jumping point to new ideas and conclusions, like RAM in a computer. Long-term memory is more robust, and will last, like a hard drive in a computer.
Chapter 10 begins with a discussion of ELIZA, a piece of software that, in theory, could be used as a temporary replacement for a therapist. I want to know how ELIZA can emulate the caring nature and inherently human side of therapy when it interprets emotional distress as 1s and 0s.
Carr then starts to talk about something I have long thought about, which is the dependance on machines. He refers to the disappearance of writing for long periods of time, thanks to the word processor. I extend that conversation to the avent of spell-check, or the disappearance of cursive.
Carr finishes the chapter with an argument about deep thought. He states that the mind needs calm to promote deep and relavent thinking. However, with youth using the internet 19 hours per week, and the fact that the Internet is anything but calm, we can only deduce that deep thinking is in deep trouble. (See what I did there? I made a depth-based joke. I'm so punny. (Oh! I did it again! I'm like butter; I'm on a roll! (I'm unstoppable!)))
I wonder what Carr would say to the prospect of memory download and upload.
Chapter nine
ReplyDeleteCarr notes that once we could record information, we became much less reliant on our memories. As technology and the spread of information progresses, we continue to remember less and less. I have noticed this even between my parents’ generation and my own. Although my parents today have access to the same technology I do, they naturally have an inclination to remember (or try to remember) what they hear, read or see- to memorize information. I, on the other hand, grew up with internet access and the notion that anything I could want to know can be found within a few seconds online. I don’t even try to remember…anything. I love the quote Carr includes by David Brooks on page 180, “I had thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more but then I realized the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less.
On 191 Carr states that biological memory is alive and computer memory is not. The mind processes memories over time, continuously adding and subtracting details, extracting true meaning and shaping the past based on the present and shaping the present based on the past. Memory has character and it characterizes us. Computer memory is not much more than a library of numbers and words. Although bits of information can be moved around and changed, computer data is static.
There is the drunk, who drinks because he is unhappy and becomes more unhappy because he drinks all the time, and then there is the brain that created computer storage to help him remember and then remembers less because the information is all externally stored and accessible. As time passes, we become more and more dependent on the internet just like an alcoholic on his liquor. Outsourcing information obviously has advantages but the disadvantages could be more detrimental than meets the eye.
Chapter ten
On 207 Carr explains that Weizenbaum came to believe that the least computable aspects of our lives are that which make us human and as we become more involved with and dependent on our computers, we begin to lose those human characteristics, the qualities that distinguish us from machines- emotion. This thought makes me want to quit typing right now and forget about the grassroots toolbox blog at once.
The idea of tools as means to alienation is a profound but very basic thought. I spent six months walking from Maine to Georgia and once I started riding in cars again, I felt so removed from the world around me. I could have my little environment inside the car that had nothing to do with the car’s location or travel speed and nothing to do with the weather or the elements in general. Similarly, I lost my Iphone recently for a day and a half and had the most lively day and a half that I’ve had in quite some time. I was able to communicate with people without distractions. I was able to look at the world around me and be present rather than glued to the screen. As with everything, balancing the realities of technology and the reality of mere existence is key to happiness.
On 222 Carr quotes Martin Heidegger stating that with the technological revolution we could eventually adapt our minds to strictly calculative thinking. That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever heard. Could the internet be the end of humanity?
Q- In your conclusion, you suggest that technology may strip us entirely of our humanness. Do you truly believe this is possible and if so do you have any estimation on how long that might take and what new technology could trigger that onset?
Chapter 9
ReplyDelete“People didn’t have to memorize everything anymore. They could look it up.” Page 177
By making artificial memory we no longer have to rely on our own memory. We can have a backup. We can have multiple backups of information. The artificial memory can be easily accessed and it is permanent. Unless We erase the information ourselves it can last forever, which is not always possible for our human brains.
“an eternal fear: the fear that a new technological achievement could abolish or destroy something that we consider presious, fruitful, something that represents for us a value in itself, and deeply spiritual one” page 178
.The technological race to have the best of the best technology is an endless one. The technology we buy will be obsolete before we even turn it on. With so much focus on new technologies we for et that we were perfectly fine with the old technology, or an older way of doing something. I think people today have more fear of being out of date or obsolete than they have fear of destroying or abolishing anything from the past. We are a culture of constant growth and exploration, and constant improvement. Whether we are actually improving ourselves or not.
“a person should digest or internalize what he learns and reflect rather than slavishly reproduce the desirable qualities of the model author.” Page 179
Every bit of information from a book can be read understood and remembered, but not fully digested. It is normal to remember and be able to reproduce something from a book, but the greater thinking comes from analyzing and making your own thoughts on what the author has written.
Chapter 10
“a network of computer therapeutic terminals, something like arrays of large telephone booths, in which, for a few dollars a session we would be able to talk with an attentive, tested, and largely non-directive psychotherapist.” Page 205
This to me is just ridiculous. The fact that a person would listen to a machine for advise on life scares me. It doesn’t matter how artificially intelligent a computer is, it is not human, and could never understand human life and emotions. When computers start to understand us is when they could destroy us.
“an intellectual technology becomes an indispensible component of any structure once it is so thoroughly integrated with the structure, so enmeshed in various vital substructures, that it can no longer be factored out without fatally imparing the whole structure.”
Our culture has become more dependent on our technology, and it is being used more frequently than ever before. Some people seem to never lose their phones, they seem to be a part of their hands. Like a drug they cant help but check it every chance they get. If there is a second of down time we look to our smart phones to stay pulged in. If we somehow tomorrow we lost our technology and the internet stoped working forever, we would be able to recover, but at this rate technology is becoming a larger part of our everyday life. The internet will be similar to time. We invented time, but it has become such a major but basic part of how we live our lives.
“ the only way to avoid that fate is to have the same self awareness and courage to refuse to delegate to computers the most human of our mental activities and intellectual pursuits, particularly tasks that demand wisdom.”
The technology we create basically has to be less intelligent than us. Once a computer is made that can have wisdom or emotions we should stop there. Artificial intelligence that can out think a human is dangerous to our survival.