Tech Mind

In winter, the CBC becomes invaluable to an inquisitive mind. Especially if you are isolated, listening to stimulating explorations opens up new ideas and thoughts with space to grow and flourish. Of course, I’m not talking of the news, whose repetitiveness and surface treatment of issues can drive one mad. News always seems stale and old even though you only heard it a few hours earlier. But let’s get back to the wide open world of thoughts.

Ideas is a wonderful show on CBC. I encourage you to tune in to hear interesting documentaries about a range of subjects. One show we listened to the other night really got me thinking about our whole experience here and the wider culture. And it didn’t even touch on these issues. The show was called Ocean Mind and explored the underwater experience of whales.

Whales are certainly mysterious and solitary, and I’m sure civilized humans hate them for it. How dare they hide secrets from us? Why else would the US military destroy whales with underwater sonar recently approved by the US Supreme Court (I’m sure the whales would ask you to burn down the building and execute all the “justices” inside)?

So civilized humans, science priests as a friend calls them, are trying to understand how whales experience the sea and, particularly, the nature of their songs. Obviously this exercise is useless, they are there and that is enough, but this show has led me to think about how environments influence humans. It seems that whales and their songs and how their brains work (apart from flippers and blowholes and physical attributes) are influenced by their experience of the sea. This is perhaps obvious but maybe not so.

So how are civilized humans’ minds, yours and mine, influenced by our environments? Increasingly our minds and consciousness are divorcing from the world that we were formed in. We became a species on the planes of eastern Africa with generally flat terrain, some forests, many predators and much game to hunt and fruits and nuts to gather. This naturally impacted our consciousness in that we learned to work together to hunt and for protection which likely helped develop language to communicate more effectively. Our numbers grew and we moved to new areas, meeting new environments and adapting to them and eventually moving across the whole planet. New areas required new conscious ways of approaching them.

But now we find ourselves increasingly an urban and disparate species. We are islands in many ways requiring little of our fellows since advanced technology and complex systems provide us with clothing, shelter, entertainment, food. One could theoretically live inside an apartment having food delivered and warmth provided and entertainment on sight without ever interacting with another person over a lifetime. Theoretically. We are a social species though and our inclination is to be with others but how much is this changing with technology? Even the fact that I am typing these words instead of speaking to you puts a barrier between us. We cannot sing to one another like whales my friend.

Much like moving to the ocean forced changes in whales’ brains so moving into technology is forcing changes in civilized humans’ minds. I sometimes find myself unable to think outside the box and I wonder if this is due to the way I was brought up with increasing technology. I can’t think of an example though there have been a few. I guess it’s like I was taught one way to do something even though there are hundreds of potential ways but I am stuck on the one and can’t even consider the others. Maybe this is just me. Oh, I’m sorry I don’t have an example right now; I’ve thought of it often since being here.

I wonder if children who were born in the 1990s are even more rigid than me. And would this rigidity lead to helplessness in the face of changing circumstances? That’s my one fear because certainly things are going to change a lot for humans. We won’t have time, like pre-whales moving slowly into the sea to adapt. It’s our own curse I suppose. That’s the problem really, we all assume that our technology and our minds that create it will adapt to changing circumstances but ignore the depleting material base that has allowed our rapid growth in technological consciousness.

What happens when “natural resources” like oil, freshwater and uranium deplete to the point where they are less easy to access? Naturally they will restrict our ability to make new adaptive technologies. How will this barrier impact our consciousnesses?

I actually believe that humans have an incredible capacity to adapt but that we have dulled it through technology. We are all amazing and we should prove it by not embracing too many crutches. Your muscles will weaken the more you do. When they break you will fall. I don’t think the same will be said of the whales and their beautiful song.