3 ms·
We're already there. Man has always existed in that symbiosis since he's been man. Man is defined by his exceptional tool use, so I will claim man has never not
by metamemetics 16y ago
We're already there. Man has always existed in that symbiosis since he's been man. Man is defined by his exceptional tool use, so I will claim man has never not existed in symbiosis with machine and been just "man".
A ship that can carry a settler across the ocean is a prosthetic foot that extends his powers of travel. Eye-glasses are prosthetic eyes that extend your power of vision.
With the internet we are basically building improved books with better lookup features, they both are still prosthetic memory storage communicating information visually.
- cageface 16y agoTrue, but I think we're crossing one of those historical barriers where a quantitative difference becomes so large that it becomes a qualitative difference. The kind of symbiosis you achieve with devices that connect you instantly to every other person on the planet and to which you can offload all kinds of calculation and information gathering is truly new. I'm not a triumphalist about it either. Technology gives but also takes.
- metamemetics 16y agoWell "instantly" here probably means a response time of ~ 100-3000ms depending on the amount of processing being offloaded for an internet service. I agree it's new to be measuring this in milliseconds and discussing fiber optics rather than hours and the transatlantic-cable (or days and the pony express). If we're in the long view and talking about evolution, I disagree that the underlying process driving this has changed. I guess it's just a discussion of the merits between looking at the position of a car vs. one of its derivatives such as acceleration. You need to know all of them to predict its future position and there are possibly an infinite number of derivatives.