Yes to all of this. My antidotes to internet poisoning are prayer and Mass. Attending Mass every week, sometimes twice, is the most cultural thing I do. The music, incense, art, prayer, and community are profound balm for any anxiety. I also pray every morning. Lastly, I read old books and realize we're all grappling with the same stuff age after age. Another book you might check out on memory is St. Augustine's Confessions. Lots to say about memory in books teen and eleven and lots to say about truth and understanding differences of memory and truth in book twelve.
For me. the first inkling me that computers might be causing our mental faculties to atrophy came with the introduction of the GPS. Until then, we we all largely obliged, with the aid of printed maps, to form a mental chart before settling out on a journey, which we did with varying degree of success, only occasionally having to stop and ask a local for directions (with the concomitant wound to masculine pride, but I digress). I wonder who does that now, and wonder even more if anyone who grew up with GPS would be able to get around without it...
As for AI and memory. I feel this less acutely, than the effect of GPS and our sense of direction. This might be simply due to it's relatively novelty, but as yet I don't feel abilty to lay down memories and retrieve them has been seriously impacted. Without a doubt though, internet scrolling does have as adverse effect on one's attention span and patience with more long form media. The only remedy I've found so far is to "go dry" on social for a period of weeks and months - it does help restore some sort of balance. I suppose ideally we should cut ourselves off altogether, but very few are prepared to go truly off grid, with all that entails.
I do think we might be forced to one day through. As I'm sure a lot of people are aware, Frank Herbert's "Dune" saga is premised on a future civilization where AI, or "thinking machines" are outlawed following the "Butlerian Jihad", and where complex mental tasks are performed by rigorously schooled humans. It seemed outlandish, even back in the 80s when I first came across it. It seems far less so now.
Yesterday I went to a new place in the city I've lived in for 27 years. Before I left the house I pulled up the Google map, picked out a route, jotted down my directions on a post-it, and stuck that on the dashboard. I drive a 2013 Corolla with a screen that informs me that "Bluetooth connection failed" and I always think that's an interesting choice of words because I wasn't even trying.
One group of people who are likely to regain the memory function are sailors. They need to be able to plot their position and course using the instruments which have been around for centuries as it is foolish to rely purely on GPS.
Your work here sounds a lot like that of the Canadian media theorist, Harold A. Innis, and his distinction between time biased and space biased media, and his concern for the loss of time biased media in the contemporary world.
I've lived in the American West for the last forty years and thus, hands down for me, the most powerful antidote to internet poisoning is hiking into the mountains or out into the desert or walking along rough stretches of the Pacific coast - basically any place I can get to where I am surrounded by what David Abram calls 'the more than human', i.e. any place where it is obvious that there are far greater powers in play than those of homo sapiens.....not so sapiente (??) at this point alas.
I don't have GPS, still use maps but, of course, there was a time when if you asked for directions you might get something like "well, the road you're on right now, just keep going for a piece and sooner or later you'll come to a big ole maple on the right...you'll know because it
has a big lightning scar...thought we were gonna lose the tree, it's more'n hundred years old but somehow it managed to survive that strike...that was some storm, lemme tell ya...it's the southermost edge of Maddy Ingalls place if ya know her, anyway you're gonna go right...and then you go for another piece until ya come to Ingalls Creek which you shouldn't have any trouble crossing this time of year...now if you'd come a couple months ago you'd a never been able to get across it the water was running so high from the spring rains...but you'll be fine now...so ya keep going for another piece and you'll come to some rises...now not after the first rise but after the second one, you'll see........" Admittedly a long time ago but asking for directions was an opportunity for conversation and connection and the reference points were living beings in a living landscape.
I am glad you mentioned prayer at the end of your essay. It is the only answer to the poison of the screen. Indeed, the only answer to any mental surfeit, depletion or blockage. Prayer is, as Teresa of Avila tells us, a "loving conversation with a friend." Indeed, The friend: Christ.
Brilliant connection between Plato's wax tablet and modern memory! The tactile metaphor really does capture something ChatGPT can't replicate. I've noticed memorizing poetry and taking walks without my phone helps reclaim that inner formation space. The passivity of doomscrolling vs intentional memorization is such a crisp distinction.
This brings to my mind the epiphany in the Guermantes' library in Time Regained, Volume 7 of "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust. "I began to discover the cause by comparing those varying happy impressions which had the common quality of being felt simultaneously at the actual moment and at a distance in time, because of which common quality the noise of the spoon upon the plate, the unevenness of the paving-stones, the taste of the madeleine, imposed the past upon the present and made me hesitate as to which time I was existing in."
Yes to all of this. My antidotes to internet poisoning are prayer and Mass. Attending Mass every week, sometimes twice, is the most cultural thing I do. The music, incense, art, prayer, and community are profound balm for any anxiety. I also pray every morning. Lastly, I read old books and realize we're all grappling with the same stuff age after age. Another book you might check out on memory is St. Augustine's Confessions. Lots to say about memory in books teen and eleven and lots to say about truth and understanding differences of memory and truth in book twelve.
For me. the first inkling me that computers might be causing our mental faculties to atrophy came with the introduction of the GPS. Until then, we we all largely obliged, with the aid of printed maps, to form a mental chart before settling out on a journey, which we did with varying degree of success, only occasionally having to stop and ask a local for directions (with the concomitant wound to masculine pride, but I digress). I wonder who does that now, and wonder even more if anyone who grew up with GPS would be able to get around without it...
As for AI and memory. I feel this less acutely, than the effect of GPS and our sense of direction. This might be simply due to it's relatively novelty, but as yet I don't feel abilty to lay down memories and retrieve them has been seriously impacted. Without a doubt though, internet scrolling does have as adverse effect on one's attention span and patience with more long form media. The only remedy I've found so far is to "go dry" on social for a period of weeks and months - it does help restore some sort of balance. I suppose ideally we should cut ourselves off altogether, but very few are prepared to go truly off grid, with all that entails.
I do think we might be forced to one day through. As I'm sure a lot of people are aware, Frank Herbert's "Dune" saga is premised on a future civilization where AI, or "thinking machines" are outlawed following the "Butlerian Jihad", and where complex mental tasks are performed by rigorously schooled humans. It seemed outlandish, even back in the 80s when I first came across it. It seems far less so now.
I still do that now! I have an atlas in my car.
I fully understand why people like using a GPS. But the thought of a non-human voice telling me what to do has always sounded creepy.
Yesterday I went to a new place in the city I've lived in for 27 years. Before I left the house I pulled up the Google map, picked out a route, jotted down my directions on a post-it, and stuck that on the dashboard. I drive a 2013 Corolla with a screen that informs me that "Bluetooth connection failed" and I always think that's an interesting choice of words because I wasn't even trying.
One group of people who are likely to regain the memory function are sailors. They need to be able to plot their position and course using the instruments which have been around for centuries as it is foolish to rely purely on GPS.
Your work here sounds a lot like that of the Canadian media theorist, Harold A. Innis, and his distinction between time biased and space biased media, and his concern for the loss of time biased media in the contemporary world.
I've lived in the American West for the last forty years and thus, hands down for me, the most powerful antidote to internet poisoning is hiking into the mountains or out into the desert or walking along rough stretches of the Pacific coast - basically any place I can get to where I am surrounded by what David Abram calls 'the more than human', i.e. any place where it is obvious that there are far greater powers in play than those of homo sapiens.....not so sapiente (??) at this point alas.
I don't have GPS, still use maps but, of course, there was a time when if you asked for directions you might get something like "well, the road you're on right now, just keep going for a piece and sooner or later you'll come to a big ole maple on the right...you'll know because it
has a big lightning scar...thought we were gonna lose the tree, it's more'n hundred years old but somehow it managed to survive that strike...that was some storm, lemme tell ya...it's the southermost edge of Maddy Ingalls place if ya know her, anyway you're gonna go right...and then you go for another piece until ya come to Ingalls Creek which you shouldn't have any trouble crossing this time of year...now if you'd come a couple months ago you'd a never been able to get across it the water was running so high from the spring rains...but you'll be fine now...so ya keep going for another piece and you'll come to some rises...now not after the first rise but after the second one, you'll see........" Admittedly a long time ago but asking for directions was an opportunity for conversation and connection and the reference points were living beings in a living landscape.
I am glad you mentioned prayer at the end of your essay. It is the only answer to the poison of the screen. Indeed, the only answer to any mental surfeit, depletion or blockage. Prayer is, as Teresa of Avila tells us, a "loving conversation with a friend." Indeed, The friend: Christ.
Brilliant connection between Plato's wax tablet and modern memory! The tactile metaphor really does capture something ChatGPT can't replicate. I've noticed memorizing poetry and taking walks without my phone helps reclaim that inner formation space. The passivity of doomscrolling vs intentional memorization is such a crisp distinction.
This brings to my mind the epiphany in the Guermantes' library in Time Regained, Volume 7 of "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust. "I began to discover the cause by comparing those varying happy impressions which had the common quality of being felt simultaneously at the actual moment and at a distance in time, because of which common quality the noise of the spoon upon the plate, the unevenness of the paving-stones, the taste of the madeleine, imposed the past upon the present and made me hesitate as to which time I was existing in."
Will there be a "The Machine Has No Tradition" conference in 2026? Where do I sign up?!
Have you tried mineral rich poultry drink. Just add a few drops to her drinking water
Thank you! We have a mineral supplement for her, yes, and are cautiously hopeful she’s a bit more cheerful today
Julien Sorel ! (?)