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Student Affairs
Daniel Salter Penn State University Editor Stuart
Brown |
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Fall 2000 • Vol. 1, No. 3 |
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Charles Jonscher |
Dana Christman Northwest Missouri State University |
Charles Jonscher's new book deals with the changing forces of information technology in a fresh manner. Jonscher claims that the rapid pace of information technology has not really changed how we view our world and how we deal with one another. The author does a remarkable job of explaining the history of information and how we have dealt with it over the centuries - all without coming across as an anti-technology lunatic. Instead, he aptly produces a clear case that although information technology has created new challenges and produced remarkable results, humankind still communicates in much the same way as we always have. Indeed, Jonscher indicates that we have a need to do so.
He argues that the power of the new technology to store information is not the same as responding to what we as humans actually see and hear. The cry of others that computers have or will replace us, or our brains, causes Jonscher to scoff. "The intelligence of a single-celled organism less evolved than a neuron, such as a paramecium, is such that it can navigate towards food and negotiate obstacles, recognize danger and retreat from it. How does your PC compare" (p. 29)? He continues by indicating that "we don't have just the power of a single computer in our heads; the true comparison would be a figure more like twenty billion computers" (p. 29).
Readers are repeatedly reminded that comparing the power of computers to human thinking is, at best, like comparing apples to oranges, or, in the worst case, absurd. Jonscher recalls the chess match between the IBM computer, Deep Blue, and world champion Grandmaster Kasparov: "Deep Blue would have been helpless had the rules of the game been minutely changed, if its opponent had wanted to chat about the weather…" (p. 144). But, he does emphasize the important part computers have played in our handling of logical information. The limitations of computers, Jonscher indicates, deal with their ability to produce knowledge rather than data. Our limitations in understanding computers and what they mean to us as a society comes from our own misunderstandings about the inherent differences between what constitutes data, information, and knowledge.
Instead, Jonscher poses that for computers to begin to approximate the capacity of the human brain, they will have to be programmed to deal with the human environment and the physical world that is often unpredictable and "messy." Programmers will have to bridge the gap between the clean information environment of 1s and 0s with the world as we experience it. To do so will require great steps in fuzzy logic. Yet, Jonscher maintains that we have made great gains in this field as well and that it is likely that we will continue to underpredict the future power of technology. At the same time, we are quite likely to overstate the effect such technology will have on our everyday lives.
If there is a shortcoming in his book, it must relate to the absence of discussion about how inequitable the distribution of the new information technology is globally. But, this book was not intended to address such inequity. Jonscher's efforts in the book are quite remarkable and readers will find a fascinating read with it. Written for those with little or vast "information" about technology, readers will discover a well-written treatise about how this technology has actually affected our daily lives. Jonscher proves to be unrelenting in his task to build the case that as human beings, we are still unique and likely to remain so. "It is precisely these qualities of unfathomability and unpredictability - free will - rather than our powers of logic that makes us still unique in the age of digital machines" (p. 249). Perhaps, his thoughts are what we sometimes secretly wish to hear, but his arguments are provocative, reassuring, compelling, and irresistibly on target.
Jonscher, C. (1999). The evolution of wired life: From the alphabet to the soul-catcher chip - How information technologies change our world. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
