General Introduction
– What’s on the blog?
– The feud continues
– Polymathery
Cybernetics as Governance
– Not a portmanteau!
– Getting organized as a spiritual gift
– Rudder-steerer
– Modern definition
– Military purposes
– David Grubbs’s computer-programming past
– Feedback loops and exploding robot heads
– Cyborgs vs. androids
The Myth of Theuth
– Writing and memory
– Dialectic as a cure for writing
– The irony of the Phaedrus
– Writing as technology
– How providential is the time of Christ’s coming?
– (The use and misuse of providence)
– What are we giving away?
Cultural Cyborgs
– How the Tin Man became tin
– Blade Runner complicates memory
– Poe tries to get funny
– Cybernetics, villains, and disability
– Are children afraid of Darth Vader?
Heidegger: The Video Game
– Is the Guitar Hero stage part of Dasein?
– The appeal of video games
– Expanding the world
– Heidegger’s hammer and the physical world
– Entering into stories
The Technological Classroom
– Look-up-ability
– Memorizing facts to connect facts
– Spell check—quelle horreur!
– Phone numbers and birthdays
– Our limitless memories
– Nathan’s inability to memorize Bible verses
Where Do We Draw the Line?
– Are eyeglasses cybernetic?
– Resisting technology
– Why you never shed human limits
– Technology is part of humanism
– Breaking cell phones
The Takeaway Point
– Humanity doing its job
– Avoid idolatry
– Grace and avenues of it
– Breaking the mind/body dualism
– Be willing to change your anthropological model
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abe, Kobo. The Box Man. New York: Vintage, 2001.
—. The Face of Another. New York: Vintage, 2003.
Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan. New York: Henry Holt, 2003.
Baum, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. New York: North-South, 1999.
Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Oxford UP, 2007.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie. New York: Harper, 2008.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York: Oxford UP, 2008.
Plato. Phaedrus. Trans. Christopher Rowe. New York: Penguin, 2005.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Man That Was Used Up.” Poetry and Tales. Ed. Patrick F. Quinn. New York: Library of America, 1984.
Postman, Neil. Technopoly. New York: Vintage, 1993.