Blog #7 "Is Google Making Us Stupid"

Nicholas Carr takes a serious look at how the Internet effects our daily lives in his essay, Is Google Making Us Stupid.  He examines how we receive information now vs. how we used to receive information before the Net.  How we used to have to go to the Library to do research that took hours and now, within a few minutes we can find numerous amounts of information just by clicking a link.  The vast difference of digging into a book and retain the information, to now simply having to type it into the browser.  Our computers are doing the thinking for us by gather the snippets of information collected by our browsing history.  He takes a look at how different the Net is today vs 15 years ago.  We do everything on the Net, from watching TV to reading emails and researching our papers.  Carr has many examples of different technologies through history and the effects it had on society.  From the wristwatch to the printing press.  These technologies revolutionized the world in many ways and also set us back too.  Carr looks at how the future is unfolding in ways that may or may not be good for us.  However, Carr can not predict how it will effect us good or bad.  Carr touches on the fact that we will soon be able to connect our minds directly to computers creating a type of artificial intelligence.  In an age where technology is moving at speeds faster than our minds can possibly keep up, it is an intriguing idea to connect our brains to the Net and download information directly.  Or are our minds just as complex as a motherboard and able to adjust to our complex world of information?     

Blog #6 "A Sacred Connection to the Sun"

     In an essay by Joy Harjo,  A Sacred Connections to the Sun, Harjo emphasizes the deep connection between the sun and the earth.   Reminding the reader how we are all connected as one on this beautiful planet.  Harjo tells how the early explorers called the natives of Turtle Island, "heathens, sun worshipers.  They didn't understand that the sun is a relative and illuminates our path on this earth."  In other words, Harjo is is suggesting the respect for the Sun is just as important as it is to respect you Grandfather and all life on the planet.  The sun is the eternal life force that feeds all living things.  It allows us to see where we are going, feeds the plants we eat, and purifies the water we drink, and is a constant in existence.  Without the sun, all life on the planet shall parish.  Just as important as your Mother and Father because, without them you would not exist.  Harjo reports that many of the ceremonies continue today to help reaffirm to connection with the sun.  These acts of respect to the sun  help keep the you grounded and humbled in a world with many distractions.  Harjo acknowledges how quantum physicist are now in agreement with many of the tradition and beliefs pasted down from the elders.  We are all connected as one and we all play a very vital role in the the current experiences of the planet.  Harjo tells how in Time Square she still holds ceremony in celebration of life by bringing her newborn grandchild down at dawn and presenting her to the sun.  This is how the sun knows the newborn is family.  This essay hit home for me on many levels.  She reminded me that the path I am on is exactly where I need to be.  It is no mistake my spiritual childhood on Chumash Indian lands has given me an insight to the future.  Bridging science and spirituality on a personal level and my desire to be a quantum physicist.  It is with each new day my future is dawning!             

Blog #5 "Facebook in a Crowd"

Hal Niedzviecki's essay, Facebook in a Crowd, is a humorous and serious example of how, we as a society, have placed incredible importance on Facebook and other social networks to house our alter egos.  The friends on Facebooks, or lack-there-of, has some sort of truth of significant we are in the real world.  The noteworthiness placed on the number of friends and responses has a vital effect on our self-confidence.  Even more alarming to me, is the need to state your relationship status!  As if this action makes your relationship more valid or less historic.  I was very entertained by this article and laughed at myself for the same types of feelings I have about my Facebook friends.  I too have had events on Facebooks to which no one showed  up.  Although, I wasn't alone in bar wondering why no came, I did question my self worth.  It is also a lesson into how friendships and actual socializing is far more important than updating your status.  The amazing results in reaching a vast audience online can also harbor deeper feelings of loneliness too!  You can have hundreds of friends, but how many actually reach out or care unless it happens online.  We can be who we really want to be online and tragic as it is, we are losing the ability to function as a connected populous.  Furthering the wedge, that our government, religious, sexual, and economic class places on us.  We are connected through a medium that is removing the need to have face to face experiences and disconnecting the spiritual experience further.     

Blog #4 "iPod World: The End of Society?"

     In the essay, "iPod World: The End of Society?" written by Andrew Sullivan, he tells of a realization he had while in New York City.  He describes the once vibrant, energetic, loud city, as becoming deaf, and silenced by our need to isolate ourselves within society.  Its is ironic to think about what he is saying this article.  Society isolating themselves by walking around with music playing in their ears, has created a deaf city.  A place that is home to millions is now a town of one!  I too have marveled at this puzzle.  I waited years to get an iPod mostly because it was expensive.  Now I have an iPod Nano, iPod Touch, and an iPad!  Do I really need these devices?  No, but it filled my empty end of the possession.  When I moved from Los Angeles, I said it was because I lived in a city that was home to 19 million people and I always felt alone.  More than likely, because of this very reason.  We as a society have literally isolated ourselves, from ourselves.  Becoming more and more dependent on the Internet and our wireless devices to fulfill our socializing needs.  We communicate through Facebook, Twitter and now Facetime.  We never have to leave our homes, we can do everything from the comfort of our coaches.  What are the effects of this?  The biggest issue I see is being disconnected from life.  We experience life through a screen and we never even have to get out of our pajamas!