9/17/18

Our discussion began surrounding the Civil War, and a brief summary of the events during that time. From 1948-1990, the US battled the USSR in a fight for global independence and containment of communism, as well as avoid an all out nuclear war. This resulted not only in “proxy wars” such as those fought in Korea and Vietnam, but the policy of MAD (mutually assured destruction). My main takeaway from our discussion is that a permanent military industry resulted from this war. The Department of Defense became the largest in the government. At first many were concerned about this industry infringing upon the liberties of the common people; a large body of people with violent weapons who have sworn loyalty to their leader can in fact pose a problem if power is put into the wrong hands. However, due to the structure of the American government, specifically the checks and balances system, this has not taken over our society. In the late 19th century, the information revolution came about, also partly as a result of this war. With so many casualties and such a mass amount of information at once, rationalization and record keeping in high concentrations quickly became important.

9/19/18         

After having read “As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush, we discussed the way in which the human brain works by association. While this idea may be very useful in our everyday lives, demonstrating how humans have the ability to find connections between things that may seem entirely unrelated, it also serves as evidence that the way we think has been “bogged down” by the society that surrounds us. “Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing (Bush). Our “indexes” of information are largely constructed through association of ideas. In a way, the way we process information is much less up to us than it was years ago. Carr describes the take-over of the internet’s endless stream of information as a “cacophony of stimuli” that “short-circuits both conscious and unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively” (Carr P.119).  One thought is drawn to another by the suggested association of thought, which correlates to what we are surrounded by. We also touched on the idea that the self you construct within your own head is much different than the self that others perceive you as. In other words, The self you construct in silent reading is an artificial self, contradicting modern technology. Silent reading, as described by Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows, “changed the personal experience of reading”(Carr P.66). Originally, people did not read silently, but as this practice grew in popularity, learning itself began to change. “The development of knowledge became an increasingly private act, with each reader creating,in his own mind, a personal synthesis of the ideas and information passed down through the writings of other thinkers” (Carr P.67). This relates loosely to the concept of signal to noise ratio. For example, when a professor has something important or interesting to say, but either mumbles or has an accent or beats around the bush, the message is lost among the noise, or distractions that get in the way of the overall understanding.