Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines

By Steve Talbott

Book Overview

"Self-forgetfulness is the reigning temptation of the technological era. This is why we so readily give our assent to the absurd proposition that a computer can add two plus two, despite the obvious fact that it can do nothing of the sort--not if we have in mind anything remotely resembling what we do when we add numbers. In the computer's case, the mechanics of addition involve no motivation, no consciousness of the task, no mobilization of the will, no metabolic activity, no imagination. And its performance brings neither the satisfaction of accomplishment nor the strengthening of practical skills and cognitive capacities."

In this insightful book, author Steve Talbott, software programmer and technical writer turned researcher and editor for The Nature Institute, challenges us to step back and take an objective look at the technology driving our lives. At a time when 65 percent of American consumers spend more time with their PCs than they do with their significant others, according to a recent study, Talbott illustrates that we're forgetting one important thing--our Selves, the human spirit from which technology stems.

Whether we're surrendering intimate details to yet another database, eschewing our physical communities for online social networks, or calculating our net worth, we freely give our power over to technology until, he says, "we arrive at a computer's-eye view of the entire world of industry, commerce, and society at large...an ever more closely woven web of programmed logic."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1492025615
• ISBN13: 9781492025610
• Release Date: November 2017
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 298 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A book to get hard-core empiricists thinking more critically

The fundamental premise of this book is that the soul and its intuitive life cannot be accessed through programs of efficiency or schemes of mechanistic imitation. Jack London's cry "Man is born to live not to exist." seem appropos here. Living is an art as Aristotle would say, not a function or adjustment, or any other kind of action derived from posterior analysis. The soul, to use the language of Kant, is fundamentally...

OVER-SOUL DEVICES!!

Do you believe that fundamental change must be rooted in a transformation of the individual self? If you do, then this book is for you. Author Steve Talbott, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that challenges you to step back and take an objective look at the technology that is driving your life today. Talbott, begins by looking at how technical devices have played a positive role in essential human transformation,...