_Life on the Screen : Identity in the Age of the Internet_
Sherry Turkle
Paperback, 352 pages
Touchstone Books
ISBN: 0684833484
New York Times :
Sherry Turkle, sociology of science professor at MIT, became a prophet of
cyberspace with her1984 book, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit.
life on the Screen continues her philosophical exploration of the impact upon
human psychology of computers and the online virtual world. She argues that the
new and extraordinary cyberworld is having a profound effect on the wider
culture; and that in a realm where hypertext deconstructs writing, where
on-line relationships replace RL (Real Life), and where computers blur the line
between mind and machine, we have a working model of postmodernist thought.
Simon & Schuster :
Life on the Screenis a book not about computers, but about people and how
computers are causing us to reevaluate our identities in the age of the
Internet. We are using life on the screen to engage in new ways of thinking
about evolution, relationships, politics, sex, and the self. Life on the
Screen traces a set of boundary negotiations, telling the story of the changing
impact of the computer on our psychological lives and our evolving ideas about
minds, bodies, and machines. What is emerging, Turkle says, is a new sense of
identity-- as decentered and multiple. She describes trends in computer design,
in artificial intelligence, and in people's experiences of virtual environments
that confirm a dramatic shift in our notions of self, other, machine, and
world. The computer emerges as an object that brings postmodernism down to
earth.
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> I have been running an experiment for the last several months. Under an
> assumed name (because like it or not, there is too much attention and
> credibility paid to my own name to make this possible), I have been sending
> the most irrational, nonsensical posts I could muster, shrouding them in the
> Trojan horse of coherent-sounding jargon. I've pushed the envelope farther
> and farther, posting off-topic gibberish, responding to and quoting
> nonexistent contributions from others, deliberately misunderstanding in the
> most extreme way the simplest writings of fellow memebers. I have been
> writing this under the assumed name of Brett Lane Robertson.
>
> Now what did I expect would be the results of this experiment? Naturally, I
> expected to be caught right away! I never thought I would go on indefinitely
> and, like Hitler, seem to GROW in popularity the more extreme I became and
> the more times I repeated the nonsense. Silly me. I forgot a basic tenet of
> memetics.
>
> But wasn't there ANYONE on the list with the discernment to see my posts for
> what they were? It's almost as if the truth were so unimportant (contrasted
> with blithely letting your buttons be pushed by my messages) that no one
> here was conscious enough to poke through the curtains and find the man
> behind the wizard. I almost think that, even after revealing myself, I could
> continue posting as Brett, making myself even more irrational and
> nonsensical and, even though you all now know the truth, it wouldn't make a
> bit of difference.
I recall when "Richard" first joined the list one of his first agendas was that
we should create a list of CoV heresies. I disgreed with him then and I
disagree with him here. There wasn't anything "wrong" with Brett's posts. He
wasn't any more antogonistic than other members of this group (including myself
at times) and while his ideas were beyond my comprehension more often than not,
on the whole his posts didn't stike me as out of place in a discussion group
where "Richard Brodie" recommended hanging out at seduction.com to pick up some
practical neurolinguistic programming techniques.
If one finds ideas incomprehesible, the fault lies as much in one's
meme-parsing ability as in the speakers meme-communication ability. There are,
in my opinion, no subjects or thoughts which are "heretical", "false", or
"irrational". That we can have a discussion among the sane and the mad, or the
scientific and the mystical, or the eccentric-wealthy and the
practical-struggling facets of a society should encourage, not disappoint us.
It really shouldn't make any difference from where the text we read here
originates. So, if "Richard" can make you feel as if you've been had...if
you let your mind get absorbed in paranoid fantasies...then you've caught the
virus.
And missed the point.
One has to be able to move fluidly between different models, to keep alternate
hypotheses living in the same mind, to question assumptions but still move
forward confidently on the best guesses one can make.
That's science. It isn't about truth, it's about control, stability, and
the toleration of ambiguity.
At least, that's what Richard's always meant to me.
Reed