As I look at the relationship between technology and society, I can
only see that the vast world before us is moving forward. And in the large scheme of
things, where else is there for us to go if not to go on to bigger and better things? In every
moment that has passed throughout the history time, it is a proven fact that there will always
be a loss of some aspect of our past. In the works Fire-Worship by Nathaniel Hawthorne and As We May Think by Vannevar Bush, I can envision the fate of our world from two completely different perspectives. Hawthorne depicts future world as a complete loss in all that was once considered sacred and traditional, insinuating that nothing good may come of new inventions in science and technolgical discoveries. In contrast, Bush paints a picture of a world before us that will be full of vast technological advances and endless opportunities for man-kind.

While Hawthorne sees the new technology of a wood stove as a corruption of all that has been good and wholesome in his life thus far, Bush envisions a technology that will revolutionize the way in which we lead our future lives. I believe it is an innate characteristic of our human nature to have a sense of nostalgia to past traditions and to the people and things we must inevitably leave behind on Earth and in our hearts. As Hawthorne reminisces about the way family life used to be,
he is in despair and rather angry knowing that he will never again engage in
the same activities that he had in the past. If this new fancy woodstove
did in fact rob the essence of family talk, social values and his
enjoyment of day to day life, I feel he has only one choice before him. He must
embrace the world’s changes and find new and better ways to relate to
his environment, to socialize with the people around him and to spend quality
time with his family.

Likewise, I also believe that it is human nature to possess the endurance to push forward and to

engage in new technology, new experiences and new ways of living. As the war pushes to an end, Bush asks his audience: “what are the scientists to do next?” And the answer, I believe is to "Consider a future” in which the inherited knowledge of the ages is made more accessible to man kind. Up until this point in our history, scientists have used their knowledge to create inventions that have extended man’s physical powers rather than the powers of the mind. We must now look forward to “call for a new relationship between the thinking man and the sum of our knowledge.”

The efforts of our scientists over the last decades have given us lasting benefits, such as an increased control of our material environment, an increased knowledge of biological processes, which has given us freedom from many diseases, increased life-span and an overall improvement in mental health. Throughout war-time, our scientists shared greatly with one another, as well as with the scientists of our allies. As a team, we learned so much, paving the way for “knowledge to endure throughout the life of a race rather than that of an individual.”

Looking back to the past, Bush recalls Leibnitz’s calculating machine and Babbage’s arithmetical machine, which, at the time of their invention were too complex and too unreliable to justify the construction and maintenance costs required of their use and practicality. Bush goes on to say that he now enjoys many machines with interchangeable parts such as the typewriter, the movie camera, the automobile and a system of automatic telecommunication exchange. These machines, which may have seemed futuristic in the past, are now being constructed with great economy, proving themselves to be complex, and yet now very reliable. “The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability and something is bound to come of it.” As Bush describes in detail the camera of his day, he says that striking improvements are just around the corner. Just as any new technology is in it’s novel beginnings, the process will be slow at first, but someone, someday may speed it up. This is enough to keep researchers busy in the continuous process of modification and extension of ideas. This is true of any invention in it's beginnings; inventors have to start somewhere in order to arrive at a successful end. Considering the nature of the human mind, I feel it is very unrealistic to believe that if a process of innovation were never started, we would be perfectly and ignorantly content living in a world like Hawthorne describes. Even from the dawn of man, we have slowly made improvements through trial and era, often involving great losses. But man-kind has always been able to learn from mistakes and push foward in order to improve conditions and ways of completing tasks and living our lives from day to day. Bush notes that “it would be a brave man who could predict that such a process will always remain slow, clumsy, and faulty in detail.

Throughout our past we have made a record of history which has helped us to avoid repeating past mistakes. Through a notion of longevity, we have recorded the past in hopes of improving the future for the next generations to come. Bush envisions a type of online dictionary that would be reduced to the volume of a matchbox, which he refers to as the “on-line Encyclopedia Britanica.” He dreams that “a library of a million volumes could be compressed into one end of a desk!” Even so, he admits that it is not enough to simply make and store these libraries of records, people must be able to consult the information as well. Even in the case of modern day libraries, information is not readily consulted, it is only nibbled at by a few people. The internet of the 21^st century has succeeded in providing us with at home convenience and easy access to vast amounts of information at our finger tips. If people everywhere could access the information and knowledge our ancestors have collected for us, we may all have an extra cutting edge for future success.

Bush mentions that compression of information is also important when it comes to costs. The future “material for microfilm Britannica would cost a nickel and it would be mailed anywhere for a cent. This vision of technology holds a striking resemblance to our modern day costs in accessing the internet. As we discussed in class, we pay a small fee for internet connection through cable providers and we buy computers and pay for their expected and unexpected maintenance needs. But, in relative figures, I feel that the overall service, convenience and benefits we receive well outweigh the monetary costs we shell out. Bush had the right idea in knowing that his system would be less popular and harder to access if it were to be expensive. If Tim Berners Lee would not have opened up his internet invention to the world at no cost, I know the entire program would be compeletely different and would very likely discourage many people from using it. Bush knows that there is a great need for something of this magnitude as he states: there will always be plenty of things to compute in the detailed affairs of millions of people doing complicated things".

Bush envisions a type of speech recognition machine which is expected to type when talked to. He speaks of the Voder, which he saw at a recent World Fair, and of the Vocoder, which has been invented in the Bell laboratories. Bush asks his audience: “will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record?”

In class we have spoke several times about the difference between man and machine. We have come to a point in history where, just as Bush imagined, machines function more reliably than any human operator could and at rates thousands of times as fast. But these mechanical aids before us have and will continue to greatly aid the transformation in scientific records; again, just as Bush had hoped with his projection. Even so, there couldn’t ever be a mechanical substitute for the mature thoughts of humans because “mechanical thought and creative thought are very different things.” Bush argues this point in chapter four by going on to say: “If scientific reasoning were limited to logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of mathematics of probability.”

In response to these statements, I must proclaim that computers have come much further than Bush had ever hoped, or feared for them to come. What will computers one day be capable of? In chapter five, Bush entertains the idea that if logical processes run along an accepted grove for an extended period of time, machines may be able to replicate the process. With the simple, yet clever, use of relay circuits, the machine would function “with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.” Are there robots in our future? Will computers ever be able to simulate human thought and emotion? Taking in consideration all of the things that have been invented up to our current day that we never would of thought humanly possibe, I think I would ignorant to say that anything isn't possible.

Nevertheless, the human mind is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature. Man could not hope to accurately and fully duplicate mental processes artificially. But in the process building machines we will be able to learn from and most likely improve in the face of our research, our experiences and our endeavors along the way. The ability to consult the past in the present, as Bush explains the intricate process of “building a trail” in chapter seven, will undoubtedly facilitate scientific research in the future by providing records of the past. This envisioned technology will pave the way for man to produce, store and consult the records of his race. Perhaps Bush was searching for ways to learn from past mistakes and to prevent history from always repeating itself. If history did, in fact, repeat itself, we would not be moving forward in our conquests of the world. In conclusion to As We May Think, Bush writes: “Presumably man’s spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems.” Through this science, man may finally have a complete record that may allow his wisdom of human experience to grow and flourish. We must, however, consider the circumstance that man may perish in conflict before he learns to use any technology for true good. But this does not seam to me any sort of viable reason to terminate the quest for greater knowledge because you may miss a joyous outcome.

In this day and age the World Wide Web and the Internet is our

future! So looking forward to the growth of the human race and the prosperity
of our world as a whole, I have to agree with Bush in that we are
completely dependent on this “memex” future abound. The invention of
the internet has proven to provide us with access to a global economy,
to global knowledge and to global communication and relationships. We are able to contact people all over the world through sites such as E-Harmony and Match.com. I
feel that it is an absolute positive change in our world that we are no
longer confined to our own local rural neighborhoods. Knowing the
things that I know now and seeing what is possible with the use of our
current day technology, I would not sacrifice it all for a little front
porch talk with the neighbors or a forced eight months of fire talk
with the with the family on those cold wintry nights. Today, we are
lucky enough to have it all and to have choices as to how we spend our
time and whom we spend our time with.

Looking at these stories in relation to my own experiences in using the internet in researching, communicating, and now blogging my thoughts to the world, I can think of it only as a good thing and as a great step forward for mankind. In the days Hawthorne spoke of, nearly all of the daily activities I do would not be possible. As I said earlier, it is natural to feel a form of nostalgia when looking to the past; but we, as human beings don’t have a great deal of choice in the matter. We have to go along with the current times in order to form new traditions and make a new world for ourselves. Through my first experience with blogging, I find the entire process quite odd but amazing at the same time. Who would of known that we would come to time in our lives where we could post and publish anything we wanted to and make it accessable to anyone who wanted to read it. It wasn’t very long ago that only journalists and writers had the ability to broadcast news, information and their personal thoughts to the masses. Now, anyone can log on to u-tube to share live videos of themselves or documentaries of world events. We can create our own websites entailing anything our hearts desire and we can blog our daily activities or even classroom assignments. Perhaps I’m just not a romantic, but I can’t imagine our world without all of our current day advances. And to me, that’s just what they are: newer, better advances that have made our lives easier and more enjoyable to live.

Bush, Vannevar. "July 1945: Atlantic Monthly." As We may Think
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush>.