A Rose By Another Name

Neil Gershenfeld’s article “FAB� discusses the way personal fabrication and creativity by computers. Now that computers are an almost integral part of design work he fears that this will become a very real and very widespread problem. The human mind will be limited by the constraints of the computer. In “Silence and Light� Louis Kahn takes a slightly different view on human creativity. He seems to think that all creativity comes from without. Indeed it is true that people draw from their own experiences and observations and he thinks that without that humans have limited or now ability to be creative. I do not think that their opinions are mutually exclusive. On one hand human creativity does come from within. Creativity is an expression of someone’s inner self. However, a person is shaped by their own history and it isn’t wrong to say that experience is an inspiration for creativity.

Posted by Stephen Rose at 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As technology becomes more advanced and more familiar society more reliant on that technology. It is incredible to think that half a century ago mankind had never seen a computer. Today they are inescapable. To realize how integral they are to our culture we must imagine life without them. It is hard to think about how our modern economy would operate without them.

Without computers the massive amounts of information that is processed daily at stock exchanges would have to be calculated by hand. Our modern technology also allows instant access to information over long distance, so people everywhere can take part in this daily process.

On a more personal level, the computer has become an integral part of people's daily lives. From childhood, individuals learn to use computers for work, play and social interaction. Computers are an almost necessary tool at most modern universities.

I personally access my computer at least six days during a typical school week, and the use of a computer is required for all of my classes (except karate) at some point during the semester.

This obsessive use of technology in our society reflects Neil Postman's pessimistic idea of technopoly. Our culture is sadly too reliant on technology to work for us in our daily lives. Without it our country could almost be crippled. Computers operate all kinds of machinery, sort and manipulate databases everywhere and exchange information all over the world. The fact that the almost comical Y2K scare could occur reveals that people understand that modern technology has been given a very central role in their lives. Maybe it's more of a problem then they think.

Posted by Stephen Rose at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)