For an infant, attention and gaze are what water and sunlight are to a plant. If at the beginning of life a parent's eyes are hidden and attention is diverted into a machine, what does that teach a child? That only machines are valuable and worthy of attention. That I should form my attachments to and seek my fulfillment through machines, which I can control, not unreliable humans. The parent's behavior is both modeling these priorities and modeling the child's neurology to know no alternative. Starving the child of its birthright as a creature from the get-go.
Yes, this is absolutely correct. The father here mentioned in comments that he did not wear the goggles while the child was awake, if I remember correctly. So that was not a point I focused on here. But I fully agree that from birth meeting the child's gaze is essential.
My thoughts exactly!! As a psychotherapist I was appalled and dismayed by the dad with his baby and VR goggles. My heart ached to imagine what that child would feel when waking up to the sight of daddy engaged with a VR headset and all that entails for proper development. Your speculation that the child would seek attachment and fulfillment through machines is undeniable… we are surely doomed if people actually think this is okay. My heart feels broken- I wished I hadn’t clicked on the link to that photo now.
Excellent essay, thank you so much. That old quote from Pascal comes to mind regarding why we are so prone to distractions, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me." Having lost our ability to hear (to be present to God and one another) we must find other ways to soothe our worried souls.
Beautifully put as always. Isn't this the crux of modern technology? We simply have no collective practices that can disseminate the wisdom contained here at the speed of innovation, and thus no dependable way to make these discernments in real-time over what is or is not the optimal use of these technologies. By the time we realize the long term implications of thousands of tiny decisions, it's already too late. Oof.
Someone I follow on X posted a link to the dystopian semi-graphic novel, “The Electric State” in response to a viral tweet exalting the wonders of the Vision Pro. As the book was available on the ebook service I subscribe to (something I’m still conflicted about!) I took the time to read it. It’s absolutely haunting, with an ambivalent ending reminiscent of that of Lois Lowry’s “The Giver.” It was enough to make me ever more resolute in avoiding any such product, even as it heightened my awareness of the already insidious formation I’m being subjected to by the small device I’m typing this on.
This is one of the best analyses of the Apple vision Pro that I’ve so far come across. Bravo! More than warrants the price of subscription. I’m very much with you on the phenomenological shortfall of viewing the world through a digital screen instead of the naked eye. Not to mention the further dilution to which our attention will be subject, while captured within the embrace of this facehugger. That said, I also feel that the qualitative shortfall argument perhaps distracts from a yet more insidious function of this device, that of selective, ideological erasure. Something I explore in my post, and about which I’d dearly love to hear your thoughts. https://atomless.substack.com/p/ways-of-not-seeing
OK, three thoughts, and please note, I'm just a high-school English teacher. TL; DR: I love what you say, I love my wife and my daughters, and I don't love the binary.
I'm watching my students click and click and click...so I'm teaching a course this year in which (for example) right now we are comparing what happens in King Lear to the dangerous adoption of LLM AI's and their outputs (https://medium.com/predict/five-human-dangers-of-artificial-intelligence-ccf2ae4b92c7). We're contemplating creating an Edmund bot, an Edgar bot, a Cordelia bot, a Gloucester bot...and...of course...a Fool bot...and then reading the text to compare our creatures with Shakespeare's. Stay tuned.
The three thoughts:
1. Diane Ackerman's _A Natural History of the Senses_ includes a compelling chapter called "Touch." She notes that infants un-touched grow up to have harder lives. It's a slightly more scientific embrace of the Berry code that embraces (!) our createdness and its lovely limits. Elsewhere old Berry writes, "the dark, too, blooms and sings." BUT...
2. ...the binary either/or (machine or creature) embraces a paranoid state (borrowing from Melanie Klein). I commit to both/and. Why? Because we just CAN'T process data, or words, or images, as fast as machines can. But here they are, in our world. So they are real, too. This dual-reality condition might be why, despite their math training, my students passionately refuse to accept that 0.999-continuous equals 1. They are embracing (again) our limits that Wittgenstein celebrated with his duckrabbit. They can't split numbers into discrete (can't always be divided) and infinite (always divisible by 2) and be one person. Robert Frost, with "Sorry that I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood," stands in Wendell Berry's woods. But his speaker has to LIVE. The proofs from my math-teacher colleagues that resolve the .999 paradox are compelling and logically airtight. And the created (!) mind (here analogous to the machines Apple has created, modeled at least mechanically on our brains' neural networks) can process a lot of numbers, if it has that tool to use we call infinity...which Pascal famously preached is out of our reach...and yet we use it to define our space (with a sigh?)...
3. ...So we must teach the modes together, and share our experiences. To the degree that the machines inhibit our conviviality, we can throw in the penalty flag to stop play. My wife and I use a hand signal when the conversation on one side of the dinner table grows too one-sided: two fingers, in the "peace" or "victory" sign, which is to say, there are two people in this conversation.
Oh my gosh. So say we all, L.M. Bears a second and third reading, and a sharing with the one other person I know that can hear any of this; we'd join you over a good stiff shot of Victory Gin for further exploration. A couple of thoughts, initially: My familiarity and affection for my re-furbed 1946 Remington manual deluxe typewriter is growing; I had a sudden yearning to polish up my Red Wings, un-case my dad's (now ancient) Remington 12-gauge and join my middle sister in the field with her dogs, watching for one of them to jump a male pheasant; the clear knowledge that should anyone approach a "conversation" with (or at) me with *pple's or anyone's VR glasses, I will abruptly and bluntly leave; and, finally, I am looking forward to, and herein recommend the annual two day Lake Pepin 3-speed Tour in May, along the upper Mississippi. A tonic of un-modernist whimsy on vintage touring machines. I probably have a perfectly functioning Raleigh for loan in your frame size, btw.
Depressingly thought provoking and disturbing… thank you for this, (I guess?) Just to know these goggles exist is unnerving, but the dad wearing them while holding his baby has pushed my mind over the edge. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise as it so perfectly illustrates the dangers of what we are on the cusp of losing if we embrace this way of life. Can you please share where the Iris Murdoch quotes came from? I feel a strong need to read more of her sage wisdom. Thank you as always for your thoughtful writing; looking forward to your upcoming Secularization Comes for the Religion of Technology piece. Take good care.
Iris Murdoch, "The Sovereignty of Good", ISBN 0710068638. Perhaps you found it already. I haven't read the book myself and so can't offer further comment.
"There are two ways to augment reality: virtually or by your attention—in the mode of the machine or in the mode of a creature."
Indeed. I would say that we could also substitute "distraction" for "virtually" so that our dichotomy becomes distraction or attention.
I love distraction, and now is not the time to belabor the point that an amount of distraction is necessary for most humans from time to time.
However, when I think of the virtual world, I see the availability of constant distraction to all those who seek.
But we can chart the cultural development of this theme of distraction vs. attention to around a century ago. Tom in "The Glass Menagerie" exclaimed:
"People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses."
"Movies" instead of "moving" (which requires attention).
In the late twentieth century, Baudrillard wrote that ..."the image of a person sitting watching a television screen voided by a technicians' strike will be seen as the perfect epitome of the anthropological reality of the 20th century."
Neil Postman spoke of how we are amusing ourselves to death, and imagine: that was decades ago when tv reigned supreme!
So while distraction is both necessary and enjoyable, the development of technology that allows us to escape into a non-world has continued unabated, and it seems that more of us are spending more time than ever in the world of distraction. I don't have the data to back up the assertion; it's just an anecdotal observation.
David Brooks just wrote "How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply". Guess what shows up a lot in that book? "Attention". If you're not paying attention to another person, you can't see them deeply. If you don't see them deeply, you can't know them well. If you don't know them well, you can only have a certain kind of relationship with them. And on and on.
Consequently, the more time we spend being distracted, the less able we will be to pay attention to ourselves and other people. And this means we may not only miss the chance to know ourselves better, but we will also be unable to know others as well as we might.
I wonder what the world will be like for humans as more and more of us spend more time distracted, entertained, and amused. How will we relate to ourselves? And to each other?
You left something vital out.
For an infant, attention and gaze are what water and sunlight are to a plant. If at the beginning of life a parent's eyes are hidden and attention is diverted into a machine, what does that teach a child? That only machines are valuable and worthy of attention. That I should form my attachments to and seek my fulfillment through machines, which I can control, not unreliable humans. The parent's behavior is both modeling these priorities and modeling the child's neurology to know no alternative. Starving the child of its birthright as a creature from the get-go.
Yes, this is absolutely correct. The father here mentioned in comments that he did not wear the goggles while the child was awake, if I remember correctly. So that was not a point I focused on here. But I fully agree that from birth meeting the child's gaze is essential.
My thoughts exactly!! As a psychotherapist I was appalled and dismayed by the dad with his baby and VR goggles. My heart ached to imagine what that child would feel when waking up to the sight of daddy engaged with a VR headset and all that entails for proper development. Your speculation that the child would seek attachment and fulfillment through machines is undeniable… we are surely doomed if people actually think this is okay. My heart feels broken- I wished I hadn’t clicked on the link to that photo now.
Excellent essay, thank you so much. That old quote from Pascal comes to mind regarding why we are so prone to distractions, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me." Having lost our ability to hear (to be present to God and one another) we must find other ways to soothe our worried souls.
Do you have this piece in an audio format?
Coming this week, I hope!
Beautifully put as always. Isn't this the crux of modern technology? We simply have no collective practices that can disseminate the wisdom contained here at the speed of innovation, and thus no dependable way to make these discernments in real-time over what is or is not the optimal use of these technologies. By the time we realize the long term implications of thousands of tiny decisions, it's already too late. Oof.
This is a really good articulation of our situation. Thank you.
I also think I need to read more of Iris Murdoch, so if you have suggestions as to what to start with, I'd appreciate them.
I can't speak to the novels. But the three essays collected in The Sovereignty of Good are a great place to start with her philosophy. I'd recommend reading them in reverse order. The Iris Murdoch Society podcast is also great: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iris-murdoch-society-podcast/id1506230228
Thank you for this, Michael.
Someone I follow on X posted a link to the dystopian semi-graphic novel, “The Electric State” in response to a viral tweet exalting the wonders of the Vision Pro. As the book was available on the ebook service I subscribe to (something I’m still conflicted about!) I took the time to read it. It’s absolutely haunting, with an ambivalent ending reminiscent of that of Lois Lowry’s “The Giver.” It was enough to make me ever more resolute in avoiding any such product, even as it heightened my awareness of the already insidious formation I’m being subjected to by the small device I’m typing this on.
A short video I just found that echoes the above: https://youtu.be/hvMjsZMXPIw?si=twCjRqNVqTLE1aWB
This is one of the best analyses of the Apple vision Pro that I’ve so far come across. Bravo! More than warrants the price of subscription. I’m very much with you on the phenomenological shortfall of viewing the world through a digital screen instead of the naked eye. Not to mention the further dilution to which our attention will be subject, while captured within the embrace of this facehugger. That said, I also feel that the qualitative shortfall argument perhaps distracts from a yet more insidious function of this device, that of selective, ideological erasure. Something I explore in my post, and about which I’d dearly love to hear your thoughts. https://atomless.substack.com/p/ways-of-not-seeing
OK, three thoughts, and please note, I'm just a high-school English teacher. TL; DR: I love what you say, I love my wife and my daughters, and I don't love the binary.
I'm watching my students click and click and click...so I'm teaching a course this year in which (for example) right now we are comparing what happens in King Lear to the dangerous adoption of LLM AI's and their outputs (https://medium.com/predict/five-human-dangers-of-artificial-intelligence-ccf2ae4b92c7). We're contemplating creating an Edmund bot, an Edgar bot, a Cordelia bot, a Gloucester bot...and...of course...a Fool bot...and then reading the text to compare our creatures with Shakespeare's. Stay tuned.
The three thoughts:
1. Diane Ackerman's _A Natural History of the Senses_ includes a compelling chapter called "Touch." She notes that infants un-touched grow up to have harder lives. It's a slightly more scientific embrace of the Berry code that embraces (!) our createdness and its lovely limits. Elsewhere old Berry writes, "the dark, too, blooms and sings." BUT...
2. ...the binary either/or (machine or creature) embraces a paranoid state (borrowing from Melanie Klein). I commit to both/and. Why? Because we just CAN'T process data, or words, or images, as fast as machines can. But here they are, in our world. So they are real, too. This dual-reality condition might be why, despite their math training, my students passionately refuse to accept that 0.999-continuous equals 1. They are embracing (again) our limits that Wittgenstein celebrated with his duckrabbit. They can't split numbers into discrete (can't always be divided) and infinite (always divisible by 2) and be one person. Robert Frost, with "Sorry that I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood," stands in Wendell Berry's woods. But his speaker has to LIVE. The proofs from my math-teacher colleagues that resolve the .999 paradox are compelling and logically airtight. And the created (!) mind (here analogous to the machines Apple has created, modeled at least mechanically on our brains' neural networks) can process a lot of numbers, if it has that tool to use we call infinity...which Pascal famously preached is out of our reach...and yet we use it to define our space (with a sigh?)...
3. ...So we must teach the modes together, and share our experiences. To the degree that the machines inhibit our conviviality, we can throw in the penalty flag to stop play. My wife and I use a hand signal when the conversation on one side of the dinner table grows too one-sided: two fingers, in the "peace" or "victory" sign, which is to say, there are two people in this conversation.
And there are.
Paul, this is such a wonderful, thoughtful, and thought provoking response.
Oh my gosh. So say we all, L.M. Bears a second and third reading, and a sharing with the one other person I know that can hear any of this; we'd join you over a good stiff shot of Victory Gin for further exploration. A couple of thoughts, initially: My familiarity and affection for my re-furbed 1946 Remington manual deluxe typewriter is growing; I had a sudden yearning to polish up my Red Wings, un-case my dad's (now ancient) Remington 12-gauge and join my middle sister in the field with her dogs, watching for one of them to jump a male pheasant; the clear knowledge that should anyone approach a "conversation" with (or at) me with *pple's or anyone's VR glasses, I will abruptly and bluntly leave; and, finally, I am looking forward to, and herein recommend the annual two day Lake Pepin 3-speed Tour in May, along the upper Mississippi. A tonic of un-modernist whimsy on vintage touring machines. I probably have a perfectly functioning Raleigh for loan in your frame size, btw.
Tim Long, Just up the Hill from Lock 15.
Wish I could make the Lake Pepin 3- speed tour you speak of! Sounds like a lovely balm for times such as these.
Indeed, it is. And also lycra-free. I'm sure that someone could come up with a loaner Raleigh or Rudge-Whitworth in your frame size, too.
Depressingly thought provoking and disturbing… thank you for this, (I guess?) Just to know these goggles exist is unnerving, but the dad wearing them while holding his baby has pushed my mind over the edge. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise as it so perfectly illustrates the dangers of what we are on the cusp of losing if we embrace this way of life. Can you please share where the Iris Murdoch quotes came from? I feel a strong need to read more of her sage wisdom. Thank you as always for your thoughtful writing; looking forward to your upcoming Secularization Comes for the Religion of Technology piece. Take good care.
Iris Murdoch, "The Sovereignty of Good", ISBN 0710068638. Perhaps you found it already. I haven't read the book myself and so can't offer further comment.
Thank you!
The Iris Murdoch Society podcast is also great: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iris-murdoch-society-podcast/id1506230228
Thank you- I’ll check it out.
Another great read. Thanks for this.
"There are two ways to augment reality: virtually or by your attention—in the mode of the machine or in the mode of a creature."
Indeed. I would say that we could also substitute "distraction" for "virtually" so that our dichotomy becomes distraction or attention.
I love distraction, and now is not the time to belabor the point that an amount of distraction is necessary for most humans from time to time.
However, when I think of the virtual world, I see the availability of constant distraction to all those who seek.
But we can chart the cultural development of this theme of distraction vs. attention to around a century ago. Tom in "The Glass Menagerie" exclaimed:
"People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses."
"Movies" instead of "moving" (which requires attention).
In the late twentieth century, Baudrillard wrote that ..."the image of a person sitting watching a television screen voided by a technicians' strike will be seen as the perfect epitome of the anthropological reality of the 20th century."
Neil Postman spoke of how we are amusing ourselves to death, and imagine: that was decades ago when tv reigned supreme!
So while distraction is both necessary and enjoyable, the development of technology that allows us to escape into a non-world has continued unabated, and it seems that more of us are spending more time than ever in the world of distraction. I don't have the data to back up the assertion; it's just an anecdotal observation.
David Brooks just wrote "How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply". Guess what shows up a lot in that book? "Attention". If you're not paying attention to another person, you can't see them deeply. If you don't see them deeply, you can't know them well. If you don't know them well, you can only have a certain kind of relationship with them. And on and on.
Consequently, the more time we spend being distracted, the less able we will be to pay attention to ourselves and other people. And this means we may not only miss the chance to know ourselves better, but we will also be unable to know others as well as we might.
I wonder what the world will be like for humans as more and more of us spend more time distracted, entertained, and amused. How will we relate to ourselves? And to each other?