“Man is a rope
stretched between the animal and the Overman -- a rope over an abyss.”
“What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a
goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going.”
Thus Spake Zarathrustra
These words made a great impression on me when I was young.
At first, I was filled by romantic thoughts of the struggle of make's oneself
anew from what has been made of one by parents, teachers, companions and
ultimately history itself. The goal was to break heroically with patterns of
the past, create new values, and to live a new life free of constricting and
life-denying thoughts. Nietzsche's concept of the Overman announces this new
human being whose outline is just beginning to glimmer on the horizon of our
vision.
Nietzsche saw this new sort of human being approaching. He
saw that human evolution is a work in progress. We are always changing
unpredictably as a species. However, Nietzsche had no very clear idea of what
the Overman would be except a kind of super Greek warrior type who smashes the
idols of the crowd and dares to live bravely under the sky without the need of
heaven.
Since Nietzsche's day, there have been scientific and
technological advances that make our fast paced cultural evolution possible.
Twentieth Century elders will hardly be able to fathom the changes taking
place. The Overman is Homo-Electronicus, wired in, connected everywhere,
possessing hundreds of instant
applications. This evolution to a new sort of human being will not take
long, nor will it be confined to creating changes in culture and mentality.
What we have discovered about the neuroplasticity of the
brain holds out the promise that even old dogs can learn new tricks. It is never
too late to create neural networks corresponding to abilities that allow the
satisfaction of our desires. Furthermore, I hazard that the brains of young
people have already changed to accommodate activities like texting that
requires constant use of the thumbs.
As a mid 20th Century person, I have seen enough
time pass to notice some differences between then and now. Starting lecturing
in philosophy full time in 1972, I was from a wave of students that has receded
only in the last ten years or so. Back then, I felt the generation gap began
with people just a little older than I was at the time, 27. The cohorts following shared a similar
mindset to my own. It seemed to me that I was on the same wavelength as my students.
However, today's students have become increasingly electronic in their being
and I find it increasingly hard to
imagine what it is like to be them. Perhaps it is a failure of empathy, since
if one cannot model the interiority of another in oneself, it is is difficult
to empathize with how they experience the world. I do not know the new links
that bind students together, their electronic devices and social networks.
As one
of the elders now, it is hard for me to see very far into the future. However,
I can see that the convergence of
technology with our mental powers is going to transform human beings in
ways we cannot yet imagine. “Just in
time” electronic knowledge is going to relieve our short term memory of the
need to store contingently useless facts. When it is time to know the next
thing, one will consult the web and move on to the next stage of the
investigation. Knowledge acquisition will be driven by a constantly shifting
focus of questions, desires and tasks. Our mental powers will be augmented by
our union with the web and the society it creates. Information will be
distributed across computer networks and the web will give constant access.
What effect will this have? I really do not know, but I am confident that we
will be changing our brains by merging with digital technology. These
'augmented' humans will look back at us and wonder how we ever survived. The
trouble with being an elder is that much of the knowledge and understanding one
has acquired over a lifetime applies to a world that increasingly ceases to
exist. However, the 'down-going' of the elders is the 'over-going' of the
young. There is nothing to complain
about in that.
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