Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 08:57:08 -0400
From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <bradmcc-AT-cloud9.net>
Subject: Re: Cyber Geek


Hash wrote:
> 
> Any comments on following?
> 
> http://www.techreview.com
> May/June 1999
> 
> Cyborg Seeks Community
> Meet one of the creators of wearable computing and join him in his search
> for like-minded folks to live in an augmented reality.
> By Steve Mann
> 
>  People find me peculiar. They think it=92s odd that I spend most of my
> waking hours wearing eight or nine Internet-connected computers sewn into
> my clothing and that I wear opaque wrap-around glasses day and night,
> inside and outdoors.
[snip]
> They wonder why I sometimes
> seem detached and lost, but at other times I exhibit vast knowledge of
> their specialty.
[snip]
> Despite the peculiar glances I draw, I wouldn=92t live any other way. I have
> melded technology with my person and achieved a higher state of awareness
> than would otherwise be possible. I see the world as images imprinted onto
> my retina by rays of light controlled by several computers, which in turn
> are controlled by cameras concealed inside my glasses.
> 
> Every morning I decide how I will see the world that day.
[snip]

I am concerned that cyber-mediation of / meddling with experience
may lead people to "go off the deep end" into some kind of
[what we might call] psychotic condition (or any number of
different such conditions) from which they will not be able to
"return to reality".

I once did some volunteer work with a chronic schizophrenic
person, and have myself a couple of times experienced
"derealization": a mental state in which there is no specific
change in the primary or secondary qualities of any thing, but
somehow the overall "quality of reality" of everything in
general becomes attenuated.  Neither my experience nor what my
schizophrenic friend described to me about his experiences
was appealing.

I think the hold each of us has on reality is very
tenuous, even though, most of the time, people do not
feel this way, and certainly the misfortunes of life
often hit us or others very hard (are all too real).

There may be constructive uses for cyber-manipulation
of experience.  Surgical anesthesia and pain management
are examples which come to my mind.  Or the Star Trek episode
where a man who had been horribly burned and crippled
lived in a machine which enabled him to experience
life as if he was whole and healthy.

Those who go looking for trouble (and/or who don't consider
the risks) sometimes end up crashing (Icarus).  It is
also possible to carefully explore the unknown (Daedalus
flew, too, but he kept to a low enough altitude that
he didn't crash -- he also used Ariadne's thread when
he went looking for the Minotaur).

That's my comments.

\brad mccormick

-- 
   Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
   Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.

Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc-AT-cloud9.net
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
-------------------------------------------------------
<![%THINK;[SGML]]> Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/


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