technology « Thinking About The Mind

9Apr/10

Technology lust as the new divine?

This iPad review contains the following great introduction:

In these times we have little opportunity for mystical religious experience. By “religious” I mean the feeling that something exciting is about to happen – whether after death or immediately, through the intercession of a divine being, a miracle in life. The neophilic mind has craved magic, craved the new and spectacular, since prehistory. Man deified thunder, worshiped the cave bear. Over time we have refined the impulse; we have learned to associate it with places and things of our own creation, which provoke the mystical feeling in themselves and in what they represent. Cathedrals were at once a site for worship and a site for awe, and our better natures were expressed in them for centuries.

These days a small minority of us, mostly situated in the developed world, have replaced the awe of religious experience with the awe of technological advancement. To further that line of thinking, the fanboy is, it can be argued, a new form of religious supplicant and the fanboy’s most prominent church is the Church of Apple... John Biggs

Certainly the fervour with which many devotees approach their favourite technology be it hardware or software can approach religious zeal. It is easy to see how the fading of orthodox religions and the resultant craving for substitute religious experiences leads to this. Certainly the community or community-identification aspect can work as a kind of religion replacement. However I think one does not need to be a religionist to see how overall technology worship is a poor substitute for full religion.

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