Sunday, September 30, 2012

Gleick: Chapters 7-9 and Epilogue


It is much to my amazement how Gleick constantly compares mathematical theories and ones and zero's to the human mind trying to draw parallel's to computers and the thinking mind.  His comparison's in the last chapters of the book that compare human genes to bytes from a computer are vastly provocative comparisons but also somewhat scary.  I tend to believe that Gleick sees computers like McLuhan as an extension of the human self but tends to lean towards finding similarities to mathematical equations to our brain's synapses and mind sets.  We strive continuously to create a computer that is similar in state to the human brain but what Gleick seems to follow along with as he compares theory from Wiener and Turing towards a machine that can almost take over thinking for us.  This, I believe must not happen and we must always be the leaders of machines making sure that some type of human intervention is regulating the machines that we create.  Turing's experiments with mice in a maze that finally guides them down the right path to find their way through the labyrinth's of complexities shows that he has faith in man to take on Godly duties in creating or teaching the same kinds of thought patterns to machines and animals that we have.  His comparison's to McLuhan's theories of technology being an extension of the human being are well taken but it is to this end that we may become the creators of a new Frankenstein monster known as technology that could outrun us if we don't work hard to control it to some end.  Michelangelo's Touch from God painting pictured above almost takes on a new meaning when we consider that one of the hands today might be our own reaching out to the second hand which is not us but technology creating a new code, a new being, a new ruling class that we create in the form of a communication and technological machine that could become a greater sum of what we are today.  When you read between the lines of Gleick, I would like to believe that he offers up some warning signs like McLuhan in keeping step with what we are entering into through the technological and communications revolution of this new millennium.  With all of these new innovations comes warning signs to make sure we do not let the technology rule us and that we keep it all under control.

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