“Technology as Extension of the Human Body”

[coberst]

“Technology as Extension of the Human Body”

Marshall McLuhan “The High Priest of Pop-Culture” in the mid twentieth century was the first to announce the existence of the ‘global village’ and to express that “we become what we behold”. McLuhan sought to understand and express the effects of technology on modern culture.

McLuhan was particularly interested in “Technology as Extension of the Human Body”. An extension of our body and/or of our senses occurs when we extend the reach of our embodied mind beyond our natural limited means. As examples: the shovel is an extension of our hands and feet as we dig a trench, the spade is like our cupped hand as we remove dirt from a hole, a microscopy or telescope extends our vision to study smaller or larger dimensions.

Going further in this vein the auto is an extension of the foot. However there are negative results from all such extensions. “Amputations” represent the unintended and un-reflected counterparts of such extensions.

“Every extension of mankind, especially technological extensions, has the effect of amputating or modifying some other extension… The extension of a technology like the automobile "amputates" the need for a highly developed walking culture, which in turn causes cities and countries to develop in different ways. The telephone extends the voice, but also amputates the art of penmanship gained through regular correspondence. These are a few examples, and almost everything we can think of is subject to similar observations…We have become people who regularly praise all extensions, and minimize all amputations. McLuhan believed that we do so at our own peril.” Quotations from “Understanding Media” by Marshall McLuhan

McLuhan was concerned about man's willful blindness to the downside of technology. In his later years McLuhan developed a scientific basis for his thought around what he termed the tetrad. The tetrad is four laws, framed as questions, which give us a useful instrument for studying our culture.
What is does the technology extend?
What does it make obsolete?
What is gained?
"What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?"

McLuhan’s gravestone carries the inscription “The Truth Shall Make You Free." We do not have to like or even agree with everything that McLuhan said. However, we would be wise to remember that his was a life of great insight and it was dedicated to showing wo/man the truth about the world we live in, and especially the hidden consequences of the technologies we develop.

In the book “The Birth and Death of Meaning” Earnest Becker provides us with a synthesis of the knowledge about the extensions of the human body that McLuhan spoke of and science certified through research.

Becker informs us that the “self” is in the body but is not part of the body; it is symbolic and is not physical. “The body is an object in the field of the self: it is one of the things we inhabit…A person literally projects or throws himself out of the body, and anywhere at all…A man’s “Me” is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his mind, but his clothes and house, his wife and children, [etc].” The human can be symbolically located wherever s/he thinks part of her really exists or belongs.

It is said that the more insecure we are the more important these symbolic extensions of the self become. When we invest undue value onto such matters as desecrating a piece of cloth that symbolizes our nation is an indication that our self-valuation has declined and this overvaluation of a symbol can help compensate that loss. We get a good feeling about own value by obtaining value in the pseudopod as the flag.

In conceiving our self as a container that overflows with various and important extensions that our technology provides us we might appear like a giant amoeba spread out over the land with a center in the self. These pseudopods are not just patriotic symbols and important things but include silly things such as a car or a neck tie. We can experience nervous breakdowns when others do not respect our particular objects of reverence.

Do you think of yourself as being extended as a result of using technology? Do you think such extensions are a representation of reality? Do you think that consciousness of such claims to be useful?

[PierreGringoire]

The telephone extends the voice, but also amputates the art of penmanship gained through regular correspondence.

1) What is does the technology extend?
What does it make obsolete?
What is gained?
"What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?"

2) When we invest undue value onto such matters as desecrating a piece of cloth that symbolizes our nation is an indication that our self-valuation has declined and this overvaluation of a symbol can help compensate that loss.

3) Do you think of yourself as being extended as a result of using technology? Do you think such extensions are a representation of reality? Do you think that consciousness of such claims to be useful?

1) Technology is potentially dangerous. But if you use it in a responsible way, it could be very progressive.

2) I think that the decreasing of "self-valuation" could be lost easier if we outsource too much of our critical thinking abilities and natural intuition in the hands of something we see as having superior abilities as ourselves.

3) I think technology has to be considered reality. Although that depends on the way you define reality. I think it is very useful to be conscious of what appliances may potentially take away from the well-being of an operator. The key thing is to keep your brain active. Sometimes appliances may threaten to diminish critical thinking abilities or general health.

This decadent and dull mind state may also be enforced by taking blindly what a textbook, tabloid, or propaganda has to say as absolute fact.

The only thing that matters is that you compensate for the loss of an ability that would have normally been nurtured with the removal of any given appliance (if it is even necessary). And the focul point is your own health and well-being.

[billyjack]

"What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?"

could this be explained a bit? do you mean "reversing into" like lets say a shovel, if used for a spoon would be reverse into a hindrance or do you mean reverse into something entirely different than what it was originally meant to do, dig?


Becker informs us that the “self” is in the body but is not part of the body; it is symbolic and is not physical. “The body is an object in the field of the self: it is one of the things we inhabit…A person literally projects or throws himself out of the body, and anywhere at all…A man’s “Me” is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his mind, but his clothes and house, his wife and children, [etc].” The human can be symbolically located wherever s/he thinks part of her really exists or belongs.

concisely put--like it a lot



It is said that the more insecure we are the more important these symbolic extensions of the self become. When we invest undue value onto such matters as desecrating a piece of cloth that symbolizes our nation is an indication that our self-valuation has declined and this overvaluation of a symbol can help compensate that loss. We get a good feeling about own value by obtaining value in the pseudopod as the flag.

fact



Do you think of yourself as being extended as a result of using technology? Do you think such extensions are a representation of reality? Do you think that consciousness of such claims to be useful?

1) yeah, technology has extended me--would be tough to deny this (internet, cell phones, tv are part of my daily routine that i do religiously--that is, unquestioned)

2)well a representation is just fancy talk for symbol. so are technological extensions symbols of reality? yes, but no better representation than say, the word "reality" in talking about what is.

3) maybe not. the truth, or at least in this case the apparent truth, doesnt always lend itself to usefullness.

[coberst]

billyjack

I have known for many years that McLuhan had written the book “The Medium is The Message”. I also knew that the book was important. I borrowed the book from the library two years ago and read only a small bit of it and gave up. I borrowed the same book from the library a few months ago and now, today, I understand (somewhat) what the book is about. For the very first time I had that eureka moment when I understood the meaning of the phrase “the medium is the message”.

Understanding might be compared to a jet plane passing through the sound barrier. There is a great transition that occurs and at the boundary identified as the ‘sound barrier’ a great sonic boom is released. Understanding is like this.

The meaning of this phrase is that the effect of a new medium is not as it appears it is not in the content of the message but is in the carrier of the message. The message of the word written on a bit of papyrus is not in the content of the meaning written but is in the fact of the medium itself. The meaning of the written words in the book is a message but the book is THE MESSAGE. The book has changed our habits and thus changed us. When our habits change our attitude and character change and it is in this change that the world and its entire people change. The book’s words carry a message but the book itself is THE MESSAGE.

The written message replaces the verbal narrative, book amputates the the verbal and written message on the papyrus, today the Internet amputates the book (unfortunatly).

McLuhan goes on to point out that this applies to all of our technologies. Our technologies change us dramatically because they change our perception and our habits and thus change our attitude and our character.

[Nightshade]

Finally after 3 years a philosophy I can completly understand... Technodeterminisim McLuhan is hard technodterminist, that is he belives that society is shaped by technology, that the technology tha we create eventually changes the way we behave. On the other side are the social detreminists who belive that society controls the way technology is used and evolved and creates necessity is the mother of invention being a simpler more common way of stating this. me Im more a beliver in ANT theory (Actor-Network Theory that is) :D

[mmaria]

These days I've been reading again some novels from the past centuries, like 17th and 18th. And suddenly, it occured to me that people have not changed at all, since that time. So I don't think that technology's had any influence upon them, basically, in essence.

[blazeofglory]

These days I've been reading again some novels from the past centuries, like 17th and 18th. And suddenly, it occured to me that people have not changed at all, since that time. So I don't think that technology's had any influence upon them, basically, in essence.

I subscribe to the above idea. Basically I do not think technologies have changed us, and as a matter of fact all that technology has dome us is make life a little easier and speedier.

Man from the primordial stage of him goes unchanged even if there are something that indicate there were transformations.

We are the same way living with the possessiveness even after millenniums and we are still running for security and seeking refuge every time. Fear is there every time lurking.

We live with technologies and yet the effects of them are skin-deep only.

[coberst]

These days I've been reading again some novels from the past centuries, like 17th and 18th. And suddenly, it occured to me that people have not changed at all, since that time. So I don't think that technology's had any influence upon them, basically, in essence.

Therein lay the rub. Our motives are often unconscious and thus we are not aware of them but the world we live in is far more dangerous. Technology has placed in our hands great power. A few can destro the species but we are no more understanding of our environment than we were a hundred years ago.

[coberst]

Today's financial crisis is a good example. It has been brewing for decades, it happened like an avalanche, it is global, citizens had no idea that it was developing, and who knows how it might end.

The first challenge is to awaken the population as to the situation. If we cannot do that then the end may be tomorrow or fifty years from tomorrow or two hundred years from tomorrow, but it will most likely be within the life time of today's children.

[skasian]

Technology is minimising environmental selection pressures by preventing removal of less adapted phenotypes which evidently decrease the rate of evolution.
We are capable altering nature or even reversing it. We change nature to the best of our benefits therefore we use technology to our benefits. Therefore technology serves us as an extension of the human body like any other parts.

Technology is no less than tools made by simple tools which reflect the expanding capabilities of the human intellect and vision to innovate.
As a biologist (best subject at high school) I know that tools are extension of the human body, where we are developed to implement tools to minimise energy expenditure, therefore allowing us to spend our energy on more productive uses. As technology are forms of tools, technology therefore is scientifically an extension of the human body.

[mmaria]

Internet is rather new technology and I expect that it will bring some essential changes in humans. The crisis is mostly produced by the invention of computers. Computers can do work instead of so many workers, so they are left on the streets, unemployed. This has brought poverty and all the goods produced have no buyers. It is a chain very difficult to resolve. My pesimistic self says it is a Biblical story about the tower of Babyllon (sory if my spelling is wrong). My optimistic self says it is the changing point for the world to stop accumulating enormous sums money in the hands of a few without any good aim, in the course of the world's progress.

[skasian]

Internet is rather new technology and I expect that it will bring some essential changes in humans. The crisis is mostly produced by the invention of computers. Computers can do work instead of so many workers, so they are left on the streets, unemployed. This has brought poverty and all the goods produced have no buyers. It is a chain very difficult to resolve. My pesimistic self says it is a Biblical story about the tower of Babyllon (sory if my spelling is wrong). My optimistic self says it is the changing point for the world to stop accumulating enormous sums money in the hands of a few without any good aim, in the course of the world's progress.

In conclusion are you or are you not implying that technology is an extension of the human body?

[coberst]

Technology is minimising environmental selection pressures by preventing removal of less adapted phenotypes which evidently decrease the rate of evolution.
We are capable altering nature or even reversing it. We change nature to the best of our benefits therefore we use technology to our benefits. Therefore technology serves us as an extension of the human body like any other parts.

Technology is no less than tools made by simple tools which reflect the expanding capabilities of the human intellect and vision to innovate.
As a biologist (best subject at high school) I know that tools are extension of the human body, where we are developed to implement tools to minimise energy expenditure, therefore allowing us to spend our energy on more productive uses. As technology are forms of tools, technology therefore is scientifically an extension of the human body.

Well said. It is a concept that is difficult to understand in specific cases. Understanding the problems inherent in credit cards and what is amputated as a result is fairly easy to comprehend but just what the Internet, the alphabet, the book, and the PC does to us is more difficult for me to comprehend.

[blazeofglory]

Technology and evolution can be surrogates for each other. Evolution is a natural process and technological change is forced and therefore unnatural.

Today all that technologies do is bring imbalance upon nature and man. Technologies help us speed up deforestation and destruction of natural habitats.
Technologies have kind of mechanized human beings and man is more akin to machine than to life thru use of technology.

Man is becoming a more miserable creature, not a happy being thru technology, and in fact he is losing his sense of joy by commercializing and commoditization of happiness.

In fact happiness and joy can not be commodities the way technologies define them.

[NikolaiI]

I think technology has helped us in many ways. The internet and computer technology is the most important for most of us. Or it is certainly the most recent with the most wide-spread effect. Now we can create, access and view greater quantities of data than it has ever been imagined possible. I think should always be cautious of becoming too dependent on technology; for instance because of how if you use a digital watch you may forget how to tell time on an analog, or if you use a calculator for sums or multiplication it's not as good as doing them in your head... and also it seems to be just good sense to keep some distance from it sometimes, but if it's limited or balanced it's very beneficial.

[blazeofglory]

Technology is indeed indispensable and now to think about our life without technology is unimaginable.

Now all of us are hooked to our computer and thru the internet we level the rift among ourselves in terms of culture, language, geographies and economics.

Now I am posting all that occur to me immediately and it is likened to be in a conversation.

However there are more complexities and it has complicated our life styles.
We are farther and farther from nature, and we are getting closer and closer to robotic ways of living.

It no doubt multiplied our conveniences and comforts, but I am rather skeptical that we are really happier than our ancestors with our sophisticated technologies.

[mmaria]

In conclusion are you or are you not implying that technology is an extension of the human body?

It, certainly, is. No doubt about it.

[skasian]

It is quite logical to think that technology is in fact an extension of the human body, and I believe that it is beneficial to us even though it can be detrimental to us but just like natural selection, technology is favoured for us therefore keeps growing and developing without being eliminated.
The main problem about technology is our increasing dependency on it, where it literally have become a body part, and without it, we face terrible consequences. For example, powercut of electricity and gas, internet line troubles will cause great inconvenience, such as limitations of communication across the world.
However it is still technology that helps fix the problems in the world therefore enable us to live a better environment therefore the benefits overweighs the costs. In a way, technology fixes a machine that is in perfect order to make it into a better machine.

[coberst]

Technology and evolution can be surrogates for each other. Evolution is a natural process and technological change is forced and therefore unnatural.

Today all that technologies do is bring imbalance upon nature and man. Technologies help us speed up deforestation and destruction of natural habitats.
Technologies have kind of mechanized human beings and man is more akin to machine than to life thru use of technology.

Man is becoming a more miserable creature, not a happy being thru technology, and in fact he is losing his sense of joy by commercializing and commoditization of happiness.

In fact happiness and joy can not be commodities the way technologies define them.


Darwin informs us that nature does the selecting of creatures to survive but only humans can make that selection for technology. It is perhaps the case that eventually technology will do the selecting of when humans will be exterminated.

[coberst]

It is quite logical to think that technology is in fact an extension of the human body, and I believe that it is beneficial to us even though it can be detrimental to us but just like natural selection, technology is favoured for us therefore keeps growing and developing without being eliminated.
The main problem about technology is our increasing dependency on it, where it literally have become a body part, and without it, we face terrible consequences. For example, powercut of electricity and gas, internet line troubles will cause great inconvenience, such as limitations of communication across the world.
However it is still technology that helps fix the problems in the world therefore enable us to live a better environment therefore the benefits overweighs the costs. In a way, technology fixes a machine that is in perfect order to make it into a better machine.


I have encountered no one who seems to have an understanding of Marshall McLuhan like yours. This is an important ability that you could put to good use by helping others to understand. You could begin to help others in this matter by posting your understanding on other Internet forums. If you want to pursue this matter further drop me a PM.

[skasian]

I assume that PM stands for private message?