[MUSIC PLAYING]
JASON SILVA: You know, there
is a constant debate that
takes place when looking at
the subject of technology,
between people that argue that
technology is part of who we
are, and those that believe
that technology is fundamentally
unnatural, and that it's a tool
that's being used ultimately
to destroy the world.
I don't fall into that camp.
I echo Kevin Kelly's
ideas that stipulate
that actually technology is
the real skin of our species.
Technology is the exterioration
of our nervous system.
Technology is our extended mind.
I phone, therefore I am.
But think about it--
technology is literally the way
we turn our mind
inside out, right?
The cognitive philosophers,
Andy Clark and David Chalmers
describe it as a
kind of scaffolding
that extends our thoughts,
our reach, and our vision.
We are a tool-making
animal that has
been in a symbiotic feedback
loop with technology
since the beginning
of stone tools.
I mean, think about it--
once we created stone tools,
our jaws shrank.
Once we discovered that
fire could cook our foods,
making every meal
more efficient,
it freed up the
cognitive real estate
necessary for the emergence of
culture, religion, and arts.
So you might say
that who we are is
due to the feedback loops
between us and our tools,
to the degree that our tools
become extended appendages
that, even though they are
not within our biological skin
tissue, they are nonetheless a
part of our cognitive arsenal.
They are a part of us, the same
way a nest is a part of a bird,
and a spider's web is
a part of the spider.
It is our extended phenotype.
It is who we are.
It is our termites' colony,
it is temperature-controlled,
it is the extension
of our mindedness.
This is technology,
this is the technium,
the seventh kingdom of life.
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