For class on Wednesday, please read Vilem Flusser’s “The Non-Thing” and “The Non-Thing 2”. This reading is going to be a little different from anything else we’ve read this semester: keep in mind that Vilem Flusser is a philosopher, and as such, he is more concerned with describing a theory of the world than presenting an evidence-based argument. He also wrote these essays sometime between 1970 and 1991 (the year he died)–long before computers were facts of day-to-day life.
In your reading response, first articulate what you understand Flusser’s project to be. What phenomenon is he pointing to? Make sure to incorporate quotes from the text. Once you’ve done that, please put his ideas in conversation with one of the other essays we have read so far this semester–Braindead Megaphone, In Persuasion Nation, Is Google Making Us Stupid, Ways of Seeing, or even Black Mirror. Keep your response to around 300 words.
The passages “The non thing part 1” and “The non thing part 2” by Vilem Flusser are two interesting reads that talk about the impact technology is having on our lives. Part 1 discusses the difference between hardware and software and how knowledge is being watered down to something simplistic. Stating that humans are moving away from concrete knowledge to a more cheaper, efficient medium. Technology, primarily the internet is a invention that allows us to spread information instantaneously. Part 2 discusses how important our hands our and how in this generation and time period the most important part of our hands is the fingertip. The fingertip as Flusser states are the “organs of choice.” By letting the reader believe that he is actually praising technology for a second. Immediately after he says that he slams all hopes and dreams by saying that there is actually no freedom in the road we are heading down. He states that pressing a button or a trigger is a “programmed freedom.” Which makes me think about how much control do we really have over our technology? Or is it technology that has the control over us?
A passage that shares similar ideals with Flusser is the passage “Is Google Making Us Stupid” in which Flusser and Carr share the idea that knowledge and information is being “watered down” due to the rise of technology. Instead of getting into the nitty-gritty of the knowledge millennials and avid-technology users are getting the answers straight to their fingertips. The concept of pancake people and the society described in “The non-thing part 1” are one and the same making me wonder if technology truly making us have less substance as people.
In “The Non-thing” by Vilem Flusser, Flusser explains how people are more concerned with gathering information and looking at its value more than material goods. For instance on page 3, Flusser says, “Not just another piece of furniture. . . but another holiday trip, an even better school for our children, another music festival.” He believes that information is changing the world around us for the worse, making everything “lose this value.” Later, he compares times like this as Imperialism and the first Industrial Revolution where material values like animals were shifted to the factors that refine them like machines. Flusser wraps everything off by saying that it’s undeniably difficult to oppose information and its proliferation, but it is not able to affect our existence as a whole.
“The Non-thing 2” by Flusser begins by explaining two worlds: the world of culture and nature. But there is a third world; it is the waste. The culture cannot be consumed and turned into waste because if that were to occur, we would be dominated by the non-things. These non-things are dominating our lives and handling the important work, leaving us humans being “emancipated from grasping and productive work.” He wants humans to control their own future and not have non-things replace human decision making by using our fingertips, a method of freedom that isn’t freedom because we are doing something called programmed freedom. Flusser compares programming to totalitarianism, and that we are perhaps spiraling into something inevitable and needs to be studied in depth.
I believe that Flusser’s project is that non-things are doing the processes and thoughts that makes us human. Effectively, they are the suppliers of information and we use it. We no longer are autonomous and free to think, believe, or question what we want or like. This article is very similar to “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr because they both brush on the same elements and have similar projects. It’s interesting because “The Non-Thing 2” was written in 1991, while “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” was written 2008. This 17 year gap really allows us to compare these two articles in a different light and further promotes how Flusser was able to see the dramatic changes taking place in his time and predict to an extent how the future would turn out and try to warn others able it. In the Google article, Carr narrates how Google and other search engines hurt people’s concentration and oversimplifies information, making people unable to be autonomous and directly involved in the decision process; this may be what Flusser was apprehensive about.
After reading Vilem Flusser’s “The Non-Thing” and “The Non-Thing 2” I was quite surprised how well he predicted the future in the regard that technology will be slowly taking over the world. This was evident when Flusser stated, “Whatever can still be grasped and produced is done automatically by non-things, by programs: by ‘artificial intelligences’ and robotic machines.” This really shocked me because since this was written between 1970 and 1991, Flusser was able to create that described that these “non-things” like computers and phones would take over jobs and leave many people unemployed. I wonder what the people in his time period said and how they reacted when he made this claim, because it is sad to say that such great innovations that have been made in the recent years come with a cost since they leave many people without employment. The phenomenon that I believe that Flusser is trying to point out is that people with wealth invest in these types of innovations to make “non-things” in order to brainwash people with loads of information, which causes these people to change their perception of life and how to react to a fragile topic like death and existence.
With that being said I believe that these two pieces of writing correlate well with the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” These pieces are similar in the sense that they focus on how our society is being taken over by technology, and that slowly we will not be in dominance, but the artificial intelligence that we ourselves have created will be. It Is also crazy to believe that these pieces are so similar, yet they have been written years apart. Meaning, that this “problem” has been around for years but nothing was done to fix it. This brings up several questions to mind like, are the CEOs of the top companies specifically not addressing these problems in order to make profit? Is this the plan, that technology will take over the world in order to stimulate a more easier working class that these companies could manipulate with ease?
The article “The Non-thing” by Vilem Flusser explains the situation with a changing society with information available at everyone’s fingertips. This article explains how the times are changing rapidly, from the industrial revolution or the start of the “modern” world to this new technological age with new inventions that impact daily life greatly. Flusser observes the increasing value of information, increasing so rapidly that it will soon be more valuable than houses and materialistic objects. “And just as we get better and better at learning how to feed information into machines, all things will be transformed into the same kind of junk, even houses and pictures.”, this quote expresses Flusser’s views of materialistic objects soon losing value in face of a new competitor, information. He also fears that soon all materialistic objects will be seen as junk, as technology continues to develop and advance further.
In “The Non-thing 2”, Flusser explains another situation, where humans are surrounded by two different worlds, nature and culture. However, Flusser also indicates that the hand “consumes culture and transforms it into waste”, therefore creating a third world, a world of waste. Flusser states that these three worlds are connected in a cycle that starts from nature to culture to waste and so on, he also states that to escape from this cycle, “one would have to have non-consumable, ‘memorable’ information at one’s disposal.”. Flusser explains that “non-consumable, ‘memorable’ information” is in fact, computer memory, that can efficiently complete tasks that humans would evidently have trouble completing. This ultimately leaves many humans unemployed, because humans now have no tasks to complete for themselves. Flusser’s article ultimately connects to “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, because of the common focus in both articles, quick access to large amounts of knowledge. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr focuses on how easily accessible information was and how it results in a society where knowledge’s value is steadily increasing and is projected to eventually overtake the value of materialistic objects such as houses and pictures.
“The Non-Thing” and “The Non-Thing 2” by Vilem Flusser discuss how the environment and the people in it are changing. Flusser believes that non-things or “information” are taking over society and changing the way we live when he stated, “Non-things now flood our environment from all directions, displacing things”. He continues to talk about how non-things are impossible to grasp and how we are moving away from a world of physical objects. The environment is becoming softer through the use of electronic pictures, reels of film, and programs. Flusser also discusses how the world is changing right in front of us but we aren’t able to notice due to how saturated it is now with all the “non-things”. Society is shifting towards consuming more information instead of possessing things like it has in the past. This shift will lead to, “all things losing their value, and all values being transformed into information”. Flusser also talks about how humans have been “emancipated” from work and that, “whatever can still be grasped and produced is done automatically by non-things, by programs: by ‘artificial intelligences’ and robotic machines”. This means that technology has taken over the roles of humans in the workforce and lessens their usefulness. Lastly, Flusser discusses how we are losing the ability to make a “free” decision and instead of having freedom, we are offered programmed freedom. Programmed freedom is a choice of prescribed possibilities compared to freedom which is having the choice of an infinite amount of possibilities.
“The Non-Thing” and “The Non-Thing 2” by Vilem Flusser are remarkably similar to “Is Google Making Us Stupid”. Both texts discuss the impact of technology on our lives and how it’s changing the way we think. Technology is inducing our brains to become “soft wired” and to consume as much information possible instead of fully understanding whats in front of us. Due to our heavy reliance on technology, both texts also suggest that “the A.I” is becoming more dominant and will soon be our only means of thinking.
“The Non-Thing” and “The Non-Thing 2” by Vilem Flusser, the author explains that how our society changed from the industrial revolution to now, like the world with technology. He thinks we have to “accept” new things around us, like the electronic pictures, the data stored in computers, and we have to be ready that it’s going to make our environment “soft”. On page 90, he says “The hand consumes culture and transforms it into waste. The human being is not surrounded by two worlds, then, but by three: of nature, of culture and of waste.”These become vicious circle,what we can do is that trying to hold everything in our hands.Also, he points out the change of how people use their hands. Instead of using hands to create something, as time goes on, people use fingertip to work a lot more, so fingertips become the most important part of our body. He also says that there are a lot choices based on programming, so the programmer will not reach to the limit. But he also wants us to control our lives by ourselves, not the information let us to make the decisions.
These two passages are similar to “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr. They were not written in the same period, but they both discusses about the impact of information on people. Technology now is getting more familiar with all the people in the world, it changed people’ thoughts, lives. And the impact is becoming more, so I really want to know that what will happen in the future as the technology keeps progress.
The passages by Vilem Fluser; “The Non-Thing 1 and Non-Thing 2” are about the effect that the internet has had on people. Part one introduces us to the topic of technology and how it’s a bad thing that we have resorted to “non-things.” “Non-things now flood our environment from all directions, displacing things.” “Things” that are important is considered knowledge or concrete knowledge to be more specific. We are all aware of how fast information travels on the internet with no concrete evidence, which is the fear Vilem has. We make things that have little importance or value in society count towards something greater. This loss of focus from what matters most is what derails humans from their purposes in life, to create. Humans were made to create things, as he states in the second article; “Fingertips are organs of choice, of decision.” What that means is that creation is what humanity is founded upon. Our hands are the most important tool in our body because we have opposable thumbs. We can grab, build, destroy, and create. We have created something, the internet. The internet is the greatest creation of mankind; however, we must see it as a tool and not our only source of knowledge.
There is a strong comparison between both articles and the episode we saw in Black Mirror. Technology has provided us with ease of use and convenience, however most people are taking advantage of that and not appreciating the accessibility that we have. In Black Mirror, the memories that people have are stored onto a drive that is implemented in their brains for them to rewind and watch at anytime, meaning that there is no importance of living something in the moment and appreciating it for what it is. A memory has become a rerun of the show that is your life and particular memories are the “best episodes.”
The passages, “The Non-Thing 1” and “The Non-Thing 2” by Vilem Flusser explain the effect that technology has had on our world today. Throughout both of the passages, Flusser explains how the human society today is caring less about the moral ideas but caring more about the superficial ones. On page 88, Flusser states, “Humanity is becoming dominated by those groups who have control over information, be it construction of atomic power stations and weapons, aeroplanes and motor vehicles, or genetic engineering and management systems.” The way that I interpreted this quote was, knowledge has become very powerful in this day and age. If we were to convert our society to the survival of the fittest, only the people who obtained knowledge would be able to survive. Furthermore, I believe that Flusser is trying to say that us, human beings, are already preprogrammed with certain parameters but, we are also allowed the opportunity to choose. “The freedom of decision of pressing a key with one’s prescribed possibilities. I choose according to the regulations(outlined in the manual).” To me, this quote brings up the question, Do we actually have the freedom of decision?
Another piece of literature that I would like to compare this to is George Saunders, “Braindead Megaphone”. In the “Braindead Megaphone”, Saunders sets the scene of a party. A man with a megaphone then interrupts the party because he has a megaphone. He started to talk and his talking affects the audience to the point where they are reacting to his speech or they are speaking like him. This scenario can be related to “The Non-Thing 1” and “The Non-Thing 2” because just as Flusser was given the opportunity to make a decision, the people of the party either choose to listen, to not listen or to start spreading the megaphone mans message by speaking like him.
In his essays, “The Non-Thing and “The None Thing 2,” Vilem Flusser discusses humanity’s ongoing transformation, from a world of ‘things’ to a world of ‘non-things.’ Flusser begins by examining people’s previous obsessions over the physical things in our environment. A short while ago, everyone craved some materialistic thing be it a bigger house, a new car, or just a physical book. However, Flusser points out that in this new era, people have become more technology oriented. We have stopped creating things with our hands, instead the majority of people teach software these functions. “The working class, those producers of things, are becoming a minority…” This is very clear in the manufacturing industry where robotics are replacing workers, it can also be seen in many fast food restaurants where people are being replaced with self-serving kiosks. “This new human being in the process of being born all around us and within us is in fact without hands…The only thing left of his hands are the tips of his fingers, which he uses to tap on keys so as to play with symbols.” As our priorities change from hardware to software, we are also evolving. People are becoming more and more dependent on their fingertips as their only form of creation is through non things or software. As I read the text, I couldn’t help but wonder what would Flusser think of the iPhone, or the various virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa. The points that Flusser brings up are very similar to that of Nicolas Carr’s in, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Although both articles discuss this radical change and growing dependency on technology, there is one key difference. Carr notes the reality that technology is changing our mentality, the way we think while Flusser explores how technology is changing us physically.
Many people got their own beliefs about many things, as the time period they lived in and the culture plays a huge factor in determining that. In the articles “The Non-Thing” and “The Non-Thing 2” by Vilem Flusser. Technology is suppose to make our life easier and more productive, however that not what Flusser is agreeing to. There’s no doubt that a new “environment” of “information” is entering society. Especially when it was written, Flusser puts it “at that time, one could claim with some justification that a farmer in 1750 BC had more in common with a farmer in AD 1750 than the latter had with an industrial worker, albeit his son, in 1780. Something similar is true again today. We are closer to a worker or citizen of the time of the French Revolution than to our children- yes, those children playing with electronic gadgets.” He states that technology has changed society very rapidly that it already affected his kid’s generation. He’s comment are so advanced that most would have miss the transformation. But he’s not the only one that has this belief, in the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” is a more of an updated version of Flusser’s argument with now computers already part of of daily life, as it was written in 2008. Its also argue how technology is affect our mind and the way we work. We relay on so much on the internet that the only work that our “fingertips” is doing is just typing on the keyboard. So its very interesting how two different articles from two different time period can be very similar.
Flusser’s article “The Non-Thing” and “The Non-Thing 2” argues how technology is an intangible object in our lives. Every bit of information we receive from a phone, laptop, ipad, etc. is non tangible. Flusser’s argues how this can have a negative impact on the lives of humans. As humans progress we start to have a need for this information that comes to us so easily and in a blink of an eye. However this information we receive depletes the values we have over tangible things. For example, Flusser states “All things will lose their value, and all values will be transformed into information”(88). Today we have replaced hand held photos with photos on a phone/computer and we have replaced books with ebooks. Which brings me into the argument that Flusser made about how humans were made with hands to grasp tangible objects but with technology hands are being used for waste; which is the lack of tangible objects. Flusser also stated how technology especially machines have the potential to cause unemployment. Although this article was written before most technology Flusser knew what he was talking about because we today face these very problems.
This article relates to “Braindead Megaphone” and how people have lost their values. “Braindead Megaphone” showed how society has lost its value of intelligence and integrity. Society now values propaganda and the loudest in the room. This was shown through the scenario where a man with a megaphone talked at a party and everyone listened to whatever he had to say. This loss of value relates to Flusser and how society has lost its value for the tangible things in life like books, photo albums, paper, etc. Technology is taking over so much that humans don’t even realize we barely use objects for our day to day interactions and activities. Technology is beneficial to society in the fact that it gives information constantly however what happens when that information outsmarts humans and takes over? What will become of us then?
In “The Non Thing” and “The Non Thing 2” Villem Flusser discusses how the environment and people lives is changing because of the change from “things” to “non things”. He is making the claim that people are becoming less concerned with material possessions and are more concerned about receiving information. He states that a larger section of society is producing new “information” like services and management rather than producing products. Flusser say that eventually all things will lose value and people will have a “reevaluation of values”. This will give the people in possession of information such as atomic power stations and management systems ore power over others, allowing them to sell such information at inflated prices. He states “the new human being does not wish to do or to have but to experience.” He wants to express that people have lost touch with their materialistic side and don’t care about money but care about life more. In “The Non Thing 2” he mentions the power that your hands hold, and how much they can do for you. This power of your fingertips, he claims, isn’t that of free will but instead a “pre-programmed” action. That pulling a trigger or pressing a typewriter key is limited to how the mechanism was made. He continues to sate that if we move on to the world of “non things” our power to grasp objects and use them will diminish and more “programmed” actions will occur.
Compared to “Ways of seeing” Flusser has a different approach. In “ways of seeing” Berger claims that publicity of materialistic items is what is ruining people. Whereas, Flusser claims that non materialism is going to ruin the world. Berger supports peoples appreciation for the arts and not so much for products. However, Flusser supports the ownership of objects over a “trip to florida” for example. Both of the articles argue that people will eventually be ruined by something, but they seem to have opposite views.
Flusser’s project divides “objects” in the world and categorizes them into either things, or non-things. Non-things mostly consisted of information, things we can not grasp physically. He’s hinting about the beginning of the rise in technology and sharing of information. Honestly, I feel like he spoke about many things but his main focus seemed to be how people are beginning to hold information to a higher priority in life than materialistic things. He states that “all things will lose their value, and all values will be transformed into information.” (pg. 88) He also makes a claim that now, the more knowledgeable a person is, than the more power to that person, that we are being “dominated by those groups who have control over information…” (pg. 88) I would like to link Flusser’s philosophical work to that of Berger’s work in Ways of Seeing. Berger also shares that idea that we as humanity are being controlled by publicity and the things we see around us. However, a big difference in both these works is that Flusser takes the stance that the sharing of information was just beginning to rise, while Berger states that it has always been around us, even during the times of the oil paintings.
From both versions of the passage “Non Thing” Flusser is trying to point out in his project that we have the ability to control most of the factors around us with technology but we are still limited and fall short of what we can fully accomplish. Flusser even stated that “the society of the future without things would be split into two classes: those program-ming and those being programmed” (pg 93). So, as we have seen from the show Black Mirror the main characters do not carry as many gadgets or personal items with them in the future. In fact instead of presenting a passport to get on a plane the employee could simply scan the main characters mind for everything that he has done or seen in the last couple of days. The main character has become very dependent on the technological advances of his age but he is still limited to these non materials that society has given him. The main character also lacks privacy and there are still things that he lacks control in such as his relationship or the quality of his job interview.The point here that relates back to Flussers project is that we are becoming able to do many things with these “non things” or electronical devices which is an amazing phenomena but we are still not fully free to do as we truly please because the common people can only work with what technology has given them thus fare. The individuals creating the new systems or updates are those who are truly much closer to becoming limitless, with what they can accomplish in the real world.