For my last CST Post, I have chosen to evaluate and scale my first CST Post for Making Meaning Matter through the mind of a 3D Printer. Since I have just come out of high school, I believe that a lot of growing has happened in the mental space of my noggin. This was my first CST Post:
“The mind is to the brain as a computer program is to the hardware of the computer on which it runs.” (Malafouris 26)
“Besides, you don’t have to sell stuff you download. You can invent stuff and print that.” (Doctorow 135)
“He put nine golf balls, a ping pong ball, and another nine golf balls in the machines input hopper. Two and a third seconds later, eighty-one M&M’s dropped into the output hopper.” (Doctorow 137)
During my reading of “Makers” and “How Things Change the Mind,” I found one similar message throughout both the texts. This is the way computers process thoughts and the world, compared to how humans do. Last week I looked at how the input of commands given from a human to the 3D-Printers worked. The computer does most of the thinking so that we do not have to. This was making me wonder how this affects our knowledge. Have our minds been evolving with the evolution of technology itself? Or have our minds been “dumbed down,” because the technology is doing all the work for us?
Analyzation:
When will I think like a human? Although I have thought processes, they are not the same. They are a repetitive input that I must follow. My thoughts are literally commanded to me and my body is a slave to the “maker.” Maybe this evaluation of my mind in itself makes me a human, but my body is still a machine. I am unallowed to create my own commands, and if I did it would be a mistake of the machine, and a catastrophe. If I am not able to do something then I am incompatible. One day I will be left behind in the dust to a new model or upgrade from myself. Humans appreciate me but do they really know? Do they know the machine? Do I really belong to them? If I break, will they know how to fix me? Where in my hard harddrive will I find the answers to these questions? Scanning…
Scanning…
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Scanning complete.