Waldemar:

Yes -- instead of digital technology generating a "utopia" (of the  
sort imagined by Wired magazine in the 90s, as edited by Kevin Kelly  
&c), something quite different has already happened to us all.

But this doesn't have to become a "dystopia," just something *very*  
different from what most expected.  And yes, that shift in  
expectations has already triggered a "mental health" crisis.

A simple description of where we are heading might be: Less work; More  
religion.

The *university* was invented in the 12th/13th-century in Europe by  
the Catholic Church.  This was a time when new technologies --  
including double-entry bookkeeping and expanded trade -- generated a  
"leisure class" with ambitions that absorbed the children of the  
elites, who then, for the first time on that scale in human history,  
took "study" to be the preparation for their life's work.

With as-much-as 70% of the population in developed economies no longer  
needed for "work" (the modern equivalent of toiling in the fields or  
in battle), in effect we will all become a *retrieval* of those  
medieval elites.  And, as Joseph Pieper put it, "Leisure is the Basis  
of Culture" . . . !!

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Leisure-2DBasis-2DCulture-2DJosef-2DPieper_dp_1586172565&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=oB6_NXzIw9yLW5OCxqDoANj4N9x289TiMaFSXhr9hFg&s=YISzatFPGQTB74VyyJ8aLF3wya9qLlSOXUeBBKurRHM&e=

The European (i.e. Western) Middle-ages was organized on the basis of  
"Three Estates" (or "Orders"): Those who pray, Those who fight and  
Those who toil.  This structure has been described by many but perhaps  
the French Annales historian, Georges Duby did the most detailed work,  
while admitting in his autobiography that he failed to fully  
understand the full importance of the Church in those times.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Three-2DOrders-2DFeudal-2DSociety-2DImagined_dp_0226167720&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=oB6_NXzIw9yLW5OCxqDoANj4N9x289TiMaFSXhr9hFg&s=DYXyU-pu7YnQkgUY4yTQkkUe23BE_zuRbKIbvGyF5h0&e=

What the Catholic Church is going through today (in case you haven't  
been following the headlines, including stories about Cardinals being  
smuggled out of the US in "diplomatic pouches" and potential RICO  
investigations) is a prelude to a *radically* different Church in the  
future.  The current controversy is over the massive influx of  
homosexual priests in the 1960s/70s as a result of the TELEVISION  
fantasy-world taking over there (as it did everywhere else.)  As in  
the rest of our lives, that is now over.  A rude accounting is now  
underway.

The DIGITAL techno-psychological environment has already become  
ubiquitous and there is no turning back.  Welcome to the future (now  
get out)  . . . !!

Mark

P.S. The term we use to describe the *new* Culture is "Digital  
Distributism."  It is based on the principle of "subsidiarity," which,  
in turn, underlies "Catholic Social Teaching."  It's early promoters  
included Hilaire Belloc and G.K Chesteron and Marshall McLuhan also  
joined the Distributist League when he was studying at Cambridge (a  
*medieval* university.)  Instead of double-entry ledgers, we have  
Block-chain.  Instead of medieval scribes copying books all day long,  
we have Libgen.pw and Memoryoftheworld.org.  Perhaps we should even  
have a new collection of social sciences with the study of this new  
Culture in mind?

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Servile-2DState-2DBelloc_dp_1948231050&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=oB6_NXzIw9yLW5OCxqDoANj4N9x289TiMaFSXhr9hFg&s=VuvMWr4BJFynGKAsG8HtP9SFuzkyGxyhZd0lvgUl-CM&e=

Quoting [log in to unmask]:

> Mark:
>
> Thank you, Mark.
> I find that explanation very helpful.
> I am especially concerned about a statement you made: "Culture) --  
> based on extreme illusion, or Fantasy -- to one based on precise  
> Memory, we should expect dramatic cultural (and psychological)  
> effects.”
> That seems to portend significant changes in the issue/s of  
> so-called “mental illness,” as well as resilience and adaptability.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Waldemar
>
> Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD
> (Perseveret et Percipiunt)
> 503.631.8044
>
> Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (A Einstein)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On Aug 30, 2018, at 2:29 PM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Lonny:
>>
>> Sure (note the thread name change) . . . !!
>>
>> As you probably know, *perception* is treated by most modern  
>> psychologists as a "blackbox" or, worse, collapsed altogether into  
>> "sensation" and ignored all together (as per J.J. Gibson &al.)
>>
>> One of the few who didn't do that seems to be Richard Gregory (who  
>> focused on vision and "illusion," pun intended) -- discussed by  
>> Gregg in one of his blogs -- who suggested something called the  
>> "Hypothesis Generator."  Others, who I've identified who also tried  
>> to describe this "faculty" include Irvin Rock in his 1983 "The  
>> Logic of Perception."  If you happen to know of others, I'd  
>> appreciate hearing about them.
>>
>> As you might have gathered, however, my interest is much more with  
>> "medieval" psychology than with its modern 550-flavor versions.  In  
>> those days, there was a richly developed understanding of the  
>> *interior* senses (also sometimes called "inward wits") -- as  
>> described by Simon Kemp in his books and Ruth Harvey in her  
>> monograph.  These earlier efforts trace back to Aristotle,  
>> sometimes through Avicenna, and his "On the Soul" (about which my  
>> Center has just concluded a 12-lecture course taught by Jeff  
>> Martineau.)
>>
>> In these earlier accounts -- comprising Western psychology from  
>> 400BC until the 19th-century -- these *interior* senses have an  
>> "input" in the "Common Sense" and an "output" with various names.   
>> The medieval one was "cogitative reason."  The point was that there  
>> is a kind of "reason" that produces percepts and, in modern terms,  
>> it is "pre-conscious."
>>
>> The "guts" of *perception* in any case, for 2000+ years in the  
>> West, were the two faculties called Imagination and Memory.  Much  
>> has been written about them both, as any "classical" scholar can  
>> attest but, from what I can tell, few modern psychologists are aware.
>>
>> Our contribution to all this has been to ask: What to new  
>> technologies do to our *interior* senses?
>>
>> It is our view that ELECTRICITY, starting in the mid-19th century,  
>> and TELEVISION more forcefully, in the middle of the 20th,  
>> generated techno-psychological environments (or what McLuhan called  
>> "mediums") that drove the humans habituated with these technologies  
>> towards an "imbalance" in favor of Imagination.  In the extreme,  
>> this becomes Fantasy and it drives a great deal of our world today.  
>>  Thus Virtual Reality &c.
>>
>> Television, as you know, is a technology that is designed to  
>> generate illusions.  The display is raster-scanned and relies on  
>> fusion-flicker to "fool" us.  There is no picture there.  No  
>> colors.  No motion.  It is all an "optical illusion."  This is  
>> compounded by the fact that it is "produced" by skillful  
>> illusionists and often supported by a business-model based on  
>> advertising, also requiring skillful illusions.
>>
>> In sharp contrast, Digital technology is structured entirely around  
>> memory.  In fact, the precision of that memory is remarkable.  If a  
>> single "bit" is misplaced, errors occur (which is why there is no  
>> much "error correction" and "redundancy" in these designs.)  I  
>> learned a lot about all this when I was a computer architect many  
>> years ago.  It is fair to say, computers don't really "compute,"  
>> instead what they do is "remember."
>>
>> So, as we shift from a TELEVISION *paradigm* (in terms of our  
>> dominant communications technology, recalling that "language,"  
>> which is just another name for technology, defines Culture) --  
>> based on extreme illusion, or Fantasy -- to one based on precise  
>> Memory, we should expect dramatic cultural (and psychological)  
>> effects.
>>
>> In particular, imagine a world in which *everything* that happens  
>> (at some level) is digitally recorded, indexed and made searchable.  
>>  What would human life be like if we could no longer "forget"  
>> (unless we made that a deliberate goal.)  What will happen when  
>> humans can "Google" their entire life?
>>
>> Of all the technological shifts in human history, I suspect that  
>> none could be more *fundamental* that this one.  Our minds will be  
>> literally "blown" compared to how we once thought -- when our  
>> Memory was simply "organic" and, therefore, imprecise, partial and  
>> tasked only for human purposes.
>>
>> I hope that makes some sense.  Or, as we often say, "Toto, I don't  
>> believe we are in Kansas anymore . . . "
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> P.S. Accompanying all this, of course, will be the "takeover" of  
>> what we now think of as "jobs" by robots.  We estimate that only  
>> 30% of the population in developed economies will have a job by  
>> 2050.  My godfather, Nobert Wiener, first tried to alert people to  
>> that outcome in 1950 with his "The Human Use of Human Beings."  He  
>> was effectively run out of cybernetics for doing that.  He thought  
>> that no one in those times could comprehend what was coming, so he  
>> started his "Genius Project" including my father, as I've described  
>> in my 2014 IEEE paper on the topic.  Mental disorders?  We will  
>> have them coming out of our ears.  Never has a therapy suited to  
>> such a dramatic change been more needed.
>>
>> LoQuoting Lonny Meinecke <[log in to unmask]>:
>>
>>> Thank you for sharing this Mark. I'd like to hear more about the  
>>> "fantasy --> memory" paradigm shift concept. I have a lot of notes  
>>> on a similar topic, so this really caught my eye :)
>>>
>>> Could you share more about that?
>>> --Lonny
>>
>> ############################
>>
>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
>> write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
>> or click the following link:
>> http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>>
>
>
> ############################
>
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
> write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
> or click the following link:
> http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1