Aforism and general statements

Some statements about the interaction of mind and computer by Luc Sala

• The mind and the computer have more interaction than most users or even developers are willing to see or to admit. Psychology has barely touched the subject, the philosophy about it seems to come from the hackers rather than form the established scholars.
• The computer is becoming the definite extension of mind in the M. McLuhan sense, but if we believe that mind and body are integrated, we might find many more illnesses and cures from and with the computer than expected.
• There is little news in an overflow of information in society. In the past civilisation(s) have usually found solutions to that by condensing information into myths and fairy-tales, social organisations and behaviour patterns, and religion.
• Most of the so called productivity-software has the characteristics of a frightening straightjacket, limiting instead of enhancing creativity and serving the (formal) organisation rather than the individual needs.
• The spreadsheet (and many other business software) is a form of self-hypnosis
• The subliminal, the sub- en unconscious content of software is mostly invisible and goes undetected or unsuspected, even unintended, which means there a grave dangers. Manipulation is distictly possible, and probably fairly easy to do (e.g. Navigator).
• Software is specially made and adapted for the company characteristics and specifics, but we see very little adaptation to cope with the differences between individual users and their psychological and fysiological needs. (The mouse/keyboard choice is about the maximum in this respect).
• The man-machine interface is not inherently limited and could involve all chacra's. Dildonics for one is totally ignored, so is the ESP interaction with computers, or the effects of hallucinogen on programming and computer usage.
• Programming is still totally based upon the mechanistic, Western rationality, the cause and effect approach and philosophy. Esthetics, religion, intuition, spirituality, are no doubt part of it, but only as an underground, invisible influence on the individual developers.
• The computer-mystic will be a major phenomenon of the Third Millenium, todays hackers are the forerunners, seeking a new path to spiritual liberation.
• It might be, that the total scientific and rationalistic modern science will ultimately prove to be a gateway to a higher level of consciousness, a new way to the Ultimate Reality or God.
• The ideal and ultimate `hacker' will communicate directly with the machine or the networks, not disturbed through mundane interfaces.
• If we assume negative effects of computer interaction, there are bound to be positive influences, to be mobilized to neutralize the negative and therapeutically help users to become healthier, more integrated people.
• The `hacker' could be idealized as a modern interpretation of the archetypical revolutionary, but also as a frustrated `player of life'. In a psychological sense, both approached are defendable and realistically explicable.
• In the same way a computervirus can have a signalling function for societal impact of informatics, there could be deliberately negative, criminal, or even fascist programs for the purpose of warning the world for the impact on the pscyche.