Scientists are now inventing the “ultimate intelligent machine”, a computer which will beat man in every way. If the machine can outstrip man, then what is man? What are you? What is the future of man? If the machine can take over all the operations that thought does now, and do it far swifter, if it can learn much more quickly, if it can compete and, in fact, do everything that man can — except of course look at the beautiful evening star alone in the sky, and see and feel the extraordinary quietness, steadiness, immensity and beauty of it—then what is going to happen to the mind, to the brain of man? Our brains have lived so far by struggling to survive through knowledge, and when the machine takes all that over, what is going to happen? There are only two possibilities: either man will commit himself totally to entertainment — football, sports, every form of demonstration, going to the temple, and playing with all that stuff — or he will turn inward. – J Krishnamurti (A Timeless Spring)
So predicted Krishnamurti a decade-and-a-half before the emergence of the Internet. I have previously written about technology’s ability to disconnect us from ourselves. Today, I would like to explore this a bit further.
We Are Rats in a Technological Labyrinth
After performing a series of experiments with hungry rats locked in a box with a lever, behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner coined a term known as “Schedules of Reinforcement” or “Intermittent Reinforcement”.
The experimented went as follows; The rats were divided into two groups The first group was the Fixed Schedule group who received a food pellet after pressing the lever a fixed amount of times, say 20. In the second group, known as the Variable Schedule group, the rat earned the food pellet after it pressed the lever a random number of times. Sometimes it would receive the food after pressing 10 times, and sometimes after pressing 200 times.
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To the second group, the arrival of food was unpredictable. This made the addiction or reinforcement to the lever a lot more stronger. Skinner found that the first group of rats stopped pressing the lever almost immediately after the food stopped being supplied. The second group however was a lot more motivated, and they kept on pressing the lever for a very long time afterwards.
After returning from our holiday in Europe where I spent 3 months with no smartphone at all, I’ve become noticeably more aware of the tendency in myself and others of checking our phone constantly like rats waiting for that stimulating fix; that latest Facebook message, status or photo, email, or latest shocking news headline.
Most of the emails and Facebook updates are junk, but every now and again you will get that one little pellet that makes checking your phone once every 10 minutes worthwhile.
The Heart of the Technological Labyrinth
One of the feelings that stood out the most from my technological minimalist experience (a candle lit house with no televisions in a 2 km radius), is that I found it a lot easier to center myself.
My mind felt a lot more clear and inspired; I found it a lot easier to be mindful, to find the heart, the center of myself.
I’ve experienced something very similar when researching information. When I Google something, as you expect, I get a ‘Googol’ of results. Although I have more information at my disposal, I feel I am retaining a lot less than I do when I solely focus all my attention on a single book of that particular topic.
Linda Stone, a former employee of Apple and Microsoft, has coined the term “continuous partial attention” to describe life in the era of e-mail, instant messaging, cellphones, and other distractions. And it is this “continuous partial attention” that I feel exactly reflects my own dilemma.
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Whenever I immerse myself into an activity, I must do it with the fullest of my heart, with all of my focus and attention encapsulating that action. It is here that spiritual mindfulness comes into play.
Escape From the Technological Labyrinth
Can externally focused technology and internally focused mindfulness co-exist? I think they not only can, but they must.
Technology is a tool, an instrument to make our lives easier and better. But it has its limitations. Technology cannot fulfill us spiritually, it cannot makes us feel more connected with ourselves – only with the external world.
For spiritual mindfulness to become relevant to our modern day lives, we first have to separate them from the supernatural and mystical baggage that makes them so difficult for us to accept.
The moment will come when, as technology simplifies our work and our lives, we will realize that just like in the Pixar movie ‘WALL-E’ – physical comfort and mental stimulation isn’t enough. That we want to feel more meaningful experiences in life than having someone “Like” our witty status updates every few hours.
That moment will see technology reach the point where computers will be able to outperform us, and humans will scratch their heads and ask themselves … What now?
Technology will never be able to write beautiful poetry like Blake, it will never be able to compose musical pieces like Bach. That is our purpose with inner work, to focus our attention on our inner world, our emotions, our thoughts and passionate desire to express them, that is what we will have left. That is all that we will have left.
To live with greater presence, meaning, and mindfulness in the technology age is what we must strive for.
A few years ago a neighbor asked me why I cut my lawn with a push-mower. I told him that motor-operated lawn mowers are corrupting society; that life is an infinite lawn, a composition of unexciting simple moments with a few ‘spikes’ of stimulation here and there.
Cutting the lawn this way has taught me to cultivate patience, to enjoy a task that is found a chore by most. Trying to get it over and done with as quickly as possible steals you of the opportunity to engage in the feelings of falling in love with the smells, the textures, the light formations, sounds and everything that simply existing offers.
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The paradox is that the more you accept the unexciting aspects of life, the more exciting they become.
Unless we learn to embrace these mundane moments, without avoidance or frustration, without trying to escape the lack of stimulation that this very moment presents, we will never find peace and will insatiably hit that smartphone lever chasing after that food pellet.
Here, I’ll throw you one last pellet in the shape of a video to illustrate all of this. I hope you enjoy:
Mindfulness can not only coexist with technology, but it can enhance the experience itself. How often do you sit down on the computer, surf the internet and think “wow, I have infinite information at my fingertips. I have hundreds of thousands of people from all across planet earth to connect to, if I wish. I can share my thoughts with thousands of faces from Afghanistan to Albania, and can befriend anyone from any culture from Belarus to Brazil.” Try it. You may like it.
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VERY interesting and insightful!
Have you considered “organic lawn mowers”? Geese are beautiful & delicious. We are part of the eco system. No matter how you cut the lawn, you are releasing carcinogens & PM2.5 into the atmosphere.
I was playing an old game from my childhood a few days ago (Deus ex), and came across a very interesting conversation between the main character and an AI.
JC Denton: I don’t see anything amusing about spying on people.
Morpheus: Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are.
JC Denton: Some people just don’t understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance.
Morpheus: The need to be observed and understood was once
satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with
data-mining algorithms.
JC Denton: Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence.
Morpheus:God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgement and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary.
JC Denton: No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera.
Morpheus: The human organism always worships. First, it was
the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgement of others),
next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realize truly
omnipresent observation and judgment.
JC Denton: You underestimate humankind’s love of freedom.
Morpheus: The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization.
This game was developped in 2000, 4 years before facebook and the “explosion” of social networks and we already have a few AI with basic dialogue abilities … I wonder if the imagination of a game developper will become the truth.
That’s quite the philosophical conversation within a game, perhaps as ironic as me using this website to draw awareness toward the dangers of technology when misused.
Thank you for sharing Ashnar, video games and comedians are perhaps the modern prophets who herald that which most of us choose to ignore.
I was a Painter in the world of visual art and as to my experience in this country, third world, does not seemed to be practical in an ordinary and NOT renowned-visual-artist in the traditional art. To most people here, it is not practical to be in this kind of livelihood.
The alternative is to lay my hands in the cyber world as a Computer Graphic Artist/ Web Programmer/ Software Developer. There it lifts me up to survive from the starvation of my personal needs and helping other people’s. Conditioning myself to this is the new way best way of livelihood, AS OF NOW, I see there is no permanent things in life. It is variations in life to accept. CHANGE so as to speak of.
I experienced much the same in my home country. Writing, teaching about spiritual topics and helping people, was not a very lucrative career path.
None the less, I found my personal fulfillment came from this line of work so I had to make the choice; feel fulfillment doing something I love at the expense of sacrificing many comforts, or getting a socially acceptable job that would provide much comfort at the cost of selling my valuable time away in doing what I found fulfilling.
I learned to live in a small home, slept on the floor, didn’t have technology for a large part of my life and I still look back on those times as some of the best in my life. The question is; what are you willing to give up to find fulfillment in your life?
Sometimes it’s not physical comfort, but social cultural acceptance or respect we must also give up.
watching that video was such a reminder of how we have let smart things take over our lives. we don’t enjoy experiences any more as we are too busy browsing or filming them. i’m gonna bin my smart phone and get the most basic of mobile phones, and choose to connect with people again :)
I applaud your determination!
I’ve been using a 2006 model Sony Erikson for the last few years and it’s a blessing compared to how ‘convenient’ my smart phone was. Ironically we have to design this site in a way that’s smart phone friendly just to help awareness reach those who need it the most :)
I couldn’t agree more with you and this article. I’m a big fan of technology and the internet but I’m often saddened and disappointed when I see it abused. I’ve learnt to limit my smartphone usage,when I’m at work IM AT WORK,meaning I do not want ANY distractions so I always switch off the data connection on my phone. I also do this when sleeping (HSPs need their rest!). It’s 1000x easier to concentrate and complete your work when you fully focus on the task at hand. I noticed that it takes some of my colleagues FOREVER to complete a simple task because they are distracted every two minutes checking status updates or emails. It’s a shame that technology,while being a magnificent invention (if you can call it that) also facilitates in shrinking our attention spans to that of goldfish.
I wonder why you say computers/AI/machines will “never” create anything with such certainty. We already have rudimentary AI composing news reports and writing short music pieces, and computational power is projected to increase for the foreseeable future.
They lack one key element that cannot be programmed, a soul. I’m sure technology will accomplish much in replicating our arts, but unless it has the capacity to discern emotion and to poignantly feel, it has to do its tasks autonomously and repetitively following a pre-scripted path…there is no room for spontaneity which is what art is all about.
Every day I see this happen more and more, I was recently at a pool party with some friends and half the time everyone was staring at their smartphones and at times I was the only one actually swimming, I myself have learned to resist the temptation to go online but I find myself unable to convince others to do the same, any advice to unplug others
Since I wrote this article I’ve now seen the new Smartphones have the capacity to be submerged in water (perhaps so we can now be connected even while we shower?); I’m surprised your friends didn’t have those phones so they could stand in the pool typing away :)
I don’t think there’s anyway you can motivate your friends to stop using their phones, perhaps send them a link to the Eternally Connected article (https://lonerwolf.com/technology-disconnects/), it must come from their own decision to want to be more present in reality and less absorbed by a cyber world.
Dearest Sol,
Again, I can’t help but reply.
Technology as a tool and necessity, yet everything in moderation is applicable, like to diet as to work, as to any activity. Is it a trap? Was technology actually planned to make us slaves without realising? Or is it our fault for allowing it to take over our lives in the way shown in the video.. Yet without it, in today’s world, you just wouldn’t reach the people the way you are.
I have a few secrets. Do you? I like to keep it that way. Publicise, make it official, comment, follow and like, what have we become when all is said and done.. Nothing comes off the net, “I have nothing to hide” only works when you are living in peaceful times, change systems and governments and you will sing a different tune.
Keep dreaming and creating, thinking and reading, searching and frustrating, seeing the beauty in all things wrong – for without black, there is no white, without darkness, no light.
Sending much love and light
Dear Alicia,
I find it most ironic that Steve Jobs was a believer of many Buddhist teachings yet his the image of this generations inability to be content with themselves in quiet and peace, with no stimulations.
The technology, the invention is marvellous, it aids us in a infinite amount of ways. But when so many people in society have been brought up with an existential emptiness inside, with nothing really to strive for, without having suffered much hardship then it’s very easy to get lost in any stimulation that arises in the world. There’s nothing really worth fighting for, we think we are free because we are unaware of the enslavement to our stimulation seeking mind and reactive emotions.
We all have secrets, I don’t mind if mine are discovered. But I do mind how they are discovered, the erroneous way of how easy it is to misperceive someone based on information from the internet.
Technology is a challenge, it’s a struggle I think that will provide that final push to become aware of how externally focused we are. It will take time, but slowly, it is building the tension.
Beautiful comment, lovely thoughts, much love and light to you as well :)
It is pretty annoying, when you talk to someone, and he’s keep playing with his mobile phone, and exitedly keep pushing the buttons on it like a crazy. It is a sad fact, that people attention can engaged to these things, instead of listening to others or something more meaningful. The rat stuff was pretty good example, the more you keep using these phones and internet, the more you become addictive to them. Those guys on the video just cannot put down the telephone, like it is stucked to their hands.
Just for an example, like the guy, who’s sending comments to LonerWolf. He thinked of something new, spent an half hour to write a comment, to sharing his own optinion, and posting it. When he did, he becomes curious(nervous), Keep checking the new messages and comments, and keep fidgeting on how the guy on the other side of the screen will react.
The nervous guy thoughts: – Maybe I wrote a complete nonsense and everyone of think me as an idiot!? Or maybe I performed pretty cool so there’s nothing to worry about…
The reasons, why people keep checking their messages can be curiosity (what if something new arrived?), and can be nervousness, that what the people think about you after your comment or message.
Well, I cannot say that technology is useless, cuz it’s a kind of entertaintment, Without it, the life would be more sucks (especially for me). The people who developing new technologies are really a geniuses, requires a lot of creativity and logic. But, the people who are using this (if you look around) are leading a more convenient, on the other hand a more pathetic life…
It makes you question where it will all end? We have faster computers, smaller in weight and bigger in size. So there seems to be a moment in the future awaiting us when we see through a monitor (Google is already releasing Google Glass…glasses that serve as monitors), that to see life through our own eyes isn’t exciting anymore.
I recently observed that at a concert I went to, where there was fireworks and most people were looking at the fireworks through their recording phones.
You would be surprised at how many emails I have received from people asking me to read and respond to their comment more faster. I think deep down we all have a strong sense to be acknowledged, to feel special and stand out….it validates our own perception that our identities exist, our egos. Part of Involution focuses on this Maya aspect (Goddess of Illusions) to become aware of your ego and not let it drive your instincts or actions.
Deep down, whatever the reason it is that you check your phone, it steals valuable experiences away from the present moment. The phone has its purpose, if you’re waiting certain emails from somebody important, but as soon as theres no email from them…we should turn off our phones. Not get lost in aimless surfing for hours on end.
Technology serves its purpose as a tool in our modern life, it makes the world easier and more aware and informed. The investors of this technology are fulfilling their passions of creation, of finding meaning in their work. But it’s only when we start abusing this technology that I feel we should become more disciplined with ourselves.
Great stuff!