The problem, as Bill also intimates, is what is made of this -- not simply
the completely premature assertions of major theoretical breakthrough w.r.t.
learning but the concomitant reduction of humanity to it's biological
foundations (which are entirely too generalized to support necessary
features of what any reasonable person would consider human).
And of course there's that old scientistic dream of control. But in some of
literature I have seen there is also something else: rather than a welcome
integration of cognitive concepts with the material world there exists a
frankly barely concealed desire for ultimate technological escape from
materiality itself. It is this which initially annoys then alarms and even
disgusts: somewhat akin to the sensation of revulsion experienced when first
encountering the bodiless head in C.S. Lewis's "That Hideous Strength."
I personally do not take much of this kind of talk very seriously yet even
when putatively expressed in policy as I suspect unintended consequences
will amplify proportional to the effort expended to reduce them -- that is
the way of complex, self-organizing systems -- but the degree of leverage
(cf. Latour) is indeed growing and distortions could become extreme:
something to watch out for at least.
Regards,
Rolfe Windward
Dept. of Education, Lindsey Wilson College
windward who-is-at lindsey.edu
"We know more than we can say" -M. Polanyi