Technology seems to be the official enemy of soul. When we speak of technology today we automatically think of electronic technology, so to pit technology against soul is the same as setting up the opposition of soul and electricity; they seem to have nothing to do with each other. So, we are faced with a large task, the mission first of seeing how this opposition arises and what it entails, and then seeing how it might be possible to recover an element of soul in technology.  #Techne refers to making of doing, and logos to know. Thus, technology concerns the kind of knowing involved in doing, and belongs to every act of making. The potter and the artist, for instance, employ technology; they know what they are doing, and without the sense of technology any consideration of art is pure romanticism. With electronic technology, however, a difficulty arises, for here doing is ahead of knowing due to the fact that, as we shall see, we really do not know the nature of electricity but nevertheless go ahead and use it for the development of a technical World.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

Because we do not truly know the nature of nuclear energy, a similar difficulty arises with its use, much like with the use of electricity. We do not know what forces are at play, but we go ahead and make use of them anyway. Now, the immediate response may be that our most sophisticated knowledge lies in these two realms of electricity and nuclear physics. However, this “knowledge” is all theoretical and involves application of views of reality that function contrary to the way we actually experience the World. Technology is to improve the human situation. Technology constitutes not just an addition or supplement to the World, but an entirely new reordering of the World by being forgetful of the actual World and imposing on it an alien form. Remember Narcissus? He is an adolescent, pride-filled individual loved by Echo, the nymph who through certain circumstances has been brought to a condition in which she can only repeat the last words of each sentence she hears—that is the extent of her voice. Thus, if Echo hears someone say, “I love you,” she could only repeat, “love you.”  #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

Well, Narcissus will have nothing to do with Echo and she wastes away; only her voice remains. We can already see the suitability of the relation of Narcissus and Echo, for any statement Narcissus might make about the World is echoed back as a Narcissistic command from the World—“I Love you” comes back as “Love you.” Narcissus, we hear in the story, comes to a clear pool and therein sees an image, which he does not know to be himself, and he falls in love with this image of himself, which we can also take as a further manifestation of Echo.  While Narcissus seeks to slake his thirst another thirst springs up, and while he drinks he is smitten by the sight of the beautiful form he sees. He loves an unsubstantial hope and thinks that substance which is only his shadow. As a result, Narcissus wastes away in longing for the unsubstantial shadow; a flower is left, its yellow center girt with white petals. This myth corresponds as a story about technology, through which we fall in love with a shadowy replica or imitation of ourselves, exteriorized and echoing through the World.  #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

The exteriorized self lacks the substantiality of body, though it offers the shadowy hope of complete satisfaction. Technology then concerns the extension of ourselves into the World without the knowledge that this is happening. For example, with mechanical technology, parts of the body are extended into the World. The wheel is both an extension and an acceleration of walking. We, however, are unable to cope with the acceleration—it disturbs the senses. This disturbance is handled by anesthetizing the body, we begin to lose the immediate sense of the body.  With electronic technology the brain is exteriorized into the World, resulting in the autoamputation of thinking, and we enter the age of information which comes to imitate thought. And along with the imitation, or double of thought, comes the hope that this dummy thought will produce complete satisfaction. We can begin to see through electronic technology when we are able to feel that its naïve hope resembles to a very large extent the same experience as the longing for past; that is to say, the technological imagination touches upon the same psychic domain as nostalgia; they both involve fantasies of infantilism.  #RRandolphHarris 4 of 5

The memory of being unconscious, fully immersed in the World, and completely taken care of is the same as the hope for a future World in which technology will provide these same benefits. That is to say, technology, when enacted without conscious knowledge of what is involved, is not progress but regression. As social media replaces the human connection, more and more people become very ignorant and spy of people and think they know them when they do not. Finding the soul of technology requires that this confusion be clarified, this false hope abandoned, in order to diminish an inflated view of what technology is about and to locate its own limited domain. Every man may, by examining his own mind, guess what passes in the minds of others. When you feel that your own gaiety is counterfeit, it may justly lead you to suspect that of your companions not to be sincere. The selfishness of a man’s nature soars triumphant above all other considerations, in a time of war; and life becomes as small a subject of consideration as any one of its circumstances. Have you ever seen I am picking up the missing for you in a night spring breezing in the yard full of moonlight, I miss you very much. Time can change a lot of things except for my memory of you never change. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5