HON301K Oct 20-24, Bethel College, St. Paul, MN Fall 2003

Oct. 20	CyberScience, Technology & Truth: Living in a virtual age
Oct. 22	CyberWork, CyberCommunity, CyberSexuality, CyberChristianity: Living in a virtual age II.
Oct. 24	Project Workday - Forum Response 6 is Due: With the dawn of microcommunication technology our society moved farther from the service society into the information society (keep in mind that we just emerged from the industrial society). Now billions are spent on information accumulation, storage, accessing, transmission, and presentation. You cannot do anything today without using these new technologies. With the emergence of this new era also comes a greater ignorance (as we evidenced by the lack of our corporate understanding of the science and technology behind....) of these black box (or highly consumer oriented consumer designed and tested boxes) technologies and of the "truth" that these technologies might represent or not represent. If you were to write an essay on "Truth and the new knowledge and communication technology" (Truth and the cell phone, truth and the internet, truth and the computer, truth and the virtual classroom), what article would YOU write and what would it say - a sneaky way to say write an essay on an area that interests you in this diverse array of related technologies. Be sure to reference your readings and other knowledge gained as you read for and write your essay.

Readings:

Talbot, S. 1998. Why is the Moon Getting Further Away. Orion: People & Nature 17(2): 34-43 (Blackboard E-Readings Link)
Groothius, D. 1997. The Book, the Soul, and the Screen. pp. 51-63 IN: The Soul in Cyberspace. Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI (Blackboard E-Readings Link)
Tenner, E. 1996. The Computerized Office: The Revenge of th eBody. pp. 206-234 IN: Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the revenge of unintended consequences. Vintage Books, NY
Tenner, E. 1996. The Computerized Office: Productivity Puzzles. pp. 235-267IN: Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the revenge of unintended consequences. Vintage Books, NY
Real World Readings
- O'Donnell, J. J. 1998. The New Liberal Arts: Teaching in the Postmodern World pp 145-162 IN: Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA. (Blackboard E-Readings Link)
- Cybersociology, Magazine for social-scientific researchers of cyberspace. http://www.cybersociology.com, Issue One: Cyber-Romance, Cybersex, and Cyber-Eroticism. Published Online 10 Oct. '97. [Excellent articles for this whole cyber-section of the course]
- Schultz, Quentin J. 2000. Lost in the digital cosmos. (many churches appear confused when attempting to deal with the widespread Internet revolution). The Christian Century. 117(5):178
- More if you are interested

What is happening to our "world" as we become more "virtual". Are new "communication technologies" helping us to build a better world - of community, of learning, of work, of spirit, of spirituality, of knowledge, of cooperation, of....... Are high speed computers the only issue or do other technologies that have removed humanity from the "natural", like windows, electricity, automobiles, cell phones (witness recent cell phone lives commercials). Can we apply our joint thinking in our f2f time to "think on these things" and what might be "responsible technology".

Oct. 20, 2003 (So go ask the mice, I mean the computer!) (some links pertaining to today's discussion)

What science lies behind information/communication technology?
What are the technologies involved in information/communication technology?
What are the issues (the truth) involved in information/communication technology?

Class Ideas

What is the Science?

Information transmission technologies. some frequency of the em spectrum magically carries knowledge.
wired and fiberoptic technologies
binary languages 1/0
communication/knowledge sciences
labor science and specialization to the point of ‘ignorance’
computer science – “language”
Wissenschaften – science in german.
The science is also non-linear in that every specialist does not know the other pieces that fit together into the whole.
trend to a monoverse of technology – universal technologies.

What are the technologies

Internet = WWW of computers/wide area network of networks of networks……
Computers
AOL, MSN,
Cell phones, satellites, digital camera/video,
fiberoptics,
email, pagers, pdas, computer games, web sites, Nintendo, play station….microprocessors and “chips”, miniaturization.

What are the Issues?

Globalization: The loss of the local; jobs, ideas, connections. (That computer order you just placed to amazon.com really went to India (cheaper labor), to a warehouse in Hong Kong, via air to a warehouse in Seattle, to a truck to your home - you chose the "ground" cheap mail option)
Loss of the ability to communicate
The loss of tact and connection with who/where we are.
The emergency of the immediate!
The loss of importance in communication.
Dependence on technology to the point of “non-functionality”.
The time to do something has become much less and has “cheapened” the meaning of communication – the loss of “processing time” with the increase in speed of processing.
the ability to both connect and disconnect
constant availability = always on the job
text messaging = returning the phone to “delete”
the creation of a byteing of knowledge.
the loss of the “style”
the screen effect vs the physical book
eye revenge?
Classics on line all copyright expired classics
ebooks
reading online is still an issue
ergonomics
the idea of a beginning and an end vs a continual scroll of neverending ……..

10/22/03

Finally beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. (Phil 4:8 - 9)

The search for God

Examining the new "connecting" technologies.

Choose one of the following as a small group:

Find one source that is pro and one that is con for the use of this technology
Make a table with two columns and list the positives (benefits) and negatives (shortcomings, revenge effects, problems). Think in terms of life, work, persons, community, and faith.
Develop a "mission statement" for this technology - a framework that would make the technology in Monsma's terms "responsible technology".

Post your references (links), table, and mission statement to the Responsible "cyber" technology Blackboard Forum.

1. Cell Phone

2. email

3. computer

4. digital camera

5. internet

6. Blackboard

7. cd/dvd

Terminology:

independence

empowerment

relative

social obsolescence

MTBF

opacity

icons

cursor

futz factor

peer consultants

support (external) costs

intellectual property rights

graphic designers

multimedia

exponential growth

Links and further findings:

Computer Science can be regarded as the science behind Information Technology .... {Ironically from a page that now longer exists on the University of West Indies, Jamaica web site, but the search engine found the definition - http://athena.uwimona.edu.jm:1104/archives/site/DMCS/compsci/cs11a-2001-02/default.html (Oct. 20, 2003))
Human-Computer Interaction, The science behind Information Technology: A website developed by Liverpool Scientists to explain to the public how science invesitgates making Information Technology more usable. It also explains why technology is sometimes unusable and why it is not always the users fault. http://www.citiesofscience.co.uk/go/Liverpool/ContentPeople_2767.html (Oct. 20, 2003)
Intel Online Museum
- History of the Microprocessor http://www.intel.com/intel/intelis/museum/exhibits/hist_micro/index.htm
Internet Society's History of the Internet Links http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/ (Oct. 20, 2003)
Gregory R. Gromov, History of Internet and WWW: The Roads and Crossroads of Internet History
Hobbes' Internet Timeline v6.1 http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ (Oct. 20, 2003)
Sterling, Bruce 1993. Short History of the Internet THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, February 1993 (Oct. 20, 2003)
Richard T. Griffiths 2002. History of the Internet, Internet for Historians (and just about everyone else) http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/frame_theorie.html (Oct. 20, 2003)
Hark, David 2003. A Technical Introduction to the Internet (for Non-Technical People) http://www.fred.net/dhark/tii.html (Oct. 20, 2003)
Vinton G. Cerf 2001. Truth and the Internet http://www.isoc.org/internet/conduct/truth.shtml (Oct. 20, 2003)
International Myopia Prevention Association. AWARDS, PRINCIPLES, AND TRUTH ON THE INTERNET http://www.myopia.org/principles.htm (Are eyeglasses making you blind?) http://www.myopia.org/principles.htm
University of Texas, Austing, Societal Implications of Computers
It's a fact! Truth and the Internet
Maloney, Catherine, Sarah J. Lichtblau, Nadya Karpook, Carolyn Chou, Anthony Arena-DeRosa 2001. Feline Reactions to Bearded Men Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) http://www.improb.com/airchives/classical/cat/cat.html
Despair, Inc.http://www.despair.com/

November 11, 2003
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