No Time to Think
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- Опубліковано 6 бер 2008
- Google Tech Talks
March, 5 2008
ABSTRACT
Vannevar Bush's 1945 article, "As We May Think," has been much celebrated as a central inspiration for the development of hypertext and the World Wide Web. Less attention, however, has been paid to Bush's motivation for imagining a new generation of information technologies; it was his hope that more powerful tools, by automating the routine aspects of information processing, would leave researchers and other professionals more time for creative thought. But now, more than sixty years later, it seems clear that the opposite has happened, that the use of the new technologies has contributed to an accelerated mode of working and living that leaves us less to think, not more. In this talk I will explore how this state of affairs has come about and what we can do about it.
Speaker: David M. Levy
David Levy earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Stanford University in 1979 and a Diploma in Calligraphy and Bookbinding from the Roehampton Institute (London) in 1983. For more than fifteen years he was a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where his work, described in "Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age" (Arcade, 2001), centered on exploring the transition from paper and print to digital. During the year 2005-2006, he was the holder of the Papamarkou Chair in Education and Technology at the Library of Congress. A professor at the UW Information School since 2000-2001, he has been investigating how to restore contemplative balance to a world marked by information overload, fragmented attention, extreme busyness, and the acceleration of everyday life.
When I first saw the length of the video, I wished it were less than 7 minutes. After I finished watching it, now I know why.
I first met Dr. Levy in 1970, when we were suitemates at our undergraduate college. Dr. Levy is one of the most thoughtful and profund thinkers I had ever met. From this talk, it is apparent that Dr. Levy still amply deserves that distinction.
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Great talk. I have really enjoyed all of these Google Tech Talks. I feel this talks goes well with David Allen's and Merlin Mann's Getting Things Done philosophy to clear the runway so that we can get back to thinking at 40,000 ft.
This talk prompts me to think about how the speed has to do with group competition. If you take a long view it's like from the moment the first band of hunter-gatherers encountered another band we've been in this frantic race for security. Developing weapons, growing our group's numbers, everything to make absolutely sure we're not at risk of being obliterated by the Other, by Unknown means.
Another facet taking shape is just how much of our collective decisions have been shaped by communication and processing bottlenecks. "Pouring our mistakes into concrete". Even now when we have the big iron processing power required to take a step up qualitatively, we're still stuck with legacy habits and institutions, arrangements that arose from limited ability to coordinate people or simulate system dynamics. In the end that's wise, perching on this silicon-based computing branch isn't going to end well if we're sawing away at it with industrial civilisation's decline. But it's enjoyable to contemplate scenarios in which some of these bottlenecks are recognized and squashed.
Information overload crisis? Solution: mechanize learning coupled with man/machine interfacing. Personal Agent tech.
Really a wonderful talk. The vision is grand and I really think this kind of idea will have much bigger impact in the future.
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To have leisure is to practice liberty. Leisure is critical consciousness.
"It would be folly to set up a program under which research in the natural sciences and medicine was expanded at the cost of the social sciences, humanities, and other studies so essential to national well-being." - Vannevar Bush
that is awesome john -
This talk is very interesting.
Our environment is becoming surrounded with more and more software and machines.
We spend more and more time with computers. Do you spend more time with your spouse or with the computer?
Not only that. We try to mimic software and computers. We try to act as them: fast and in a mechanic way.
It is not just about thinking, it's about behavior. Are we behaving like humans or like computers or machines.
What about the title "No Time To Be Human"?
Tnx for that talk.
After I got my Ph.d in Computer Science at Stanford. I decided to move to London to Write in Old Calligraphy and Bind Books... lol...
You don't have to work hard to make time for leisure, and isn't usually a means of production. Its the typically the description, or outline, of the mechanism for production.
We have transformed from ***Human Beings*** into ***Human Doings*** !
Absolutely
But everyday is already 'Only listen if you choose to day'.
Brilliant.
Where is the space n time he asks at half way point. Idk anything except that neither exist. And neither can we think…as in create a thought. We can’t create an opinion. Every ‘thing’ is actually a thought. So we got it backwards maybe.
Where is the thought that thinks of space n time.
Great talk tho, thank you. ❤
....with the internet i don´t need to live near a big city.....and that is "time to think".....and it is cheap to travel to any city if i need to...
like my father many scientists and thinkers were limited by the technology of their time
Is quantum coherence a form of leisure? (j/k)
"Creative work" is almost an oxymoron, more typical: "creative play".
Perhaps creativity seeks what's missing in what is here (the space for growth?). One preoccupied with work pops his head up and feels something essential is missing; one at play might equally feel unease in not working harder, more seriously. The whole talk somehow smacks of the neurotic structure it seeks to escape. The only suggestion: "balance" - a homeostatic term that belies the natural struggle.
@comeonewtf Heh, I am a nerd so thanks for the compliment, but no I haven't yet been invited to speak at google. His point isn't that technology is bad. Take a cathedral for example, when you are there with only a few other tourists, everyone speaks very quietly because they can hear their own voices extremely well. If you fill that room with people then the echos will drown out an individual. If you design technology in a loud way then you wont be able to think... That's his point
Nice Talk.
I think the answer he keeps seeming to look for is at least partially found in the act of creating, blogging, commenting and all the other aspects of content creation that exist and support the model he mentions a lot, information retrieval and sorting, which he also mentions, google supplies so well.
What went wrong? The human ability to process data has remained a constant. Why are not machines being tasked to do data 'interpretation'? Is pattern recognition something that can be mechanized? If so, what prevents us from using it? Is it that we don;t trust the machines? If so, why?
Friends search for Jiddu Krishnamurti on UA-cam and give few min of your time to explore how brain depends so much on knowledge and limitation of knowledge
Let us work hard to find a way to make leisure useful to the means of production. Huh?
was watching this video
"ratio" or "intellectus" ? I mean I googled this and youtube is providing the video feed
but watching this felt more like "intellectus" and not information overload
but I should think this matter.
@blackacidlizzard how is the "something can't come from nothing" argument "self-defeating"? huh? its proof of something which will forever defy our logic
Read Feynman. Think Feynman.
well we have so many distractions these days.
"Paper to plastic"... way to perpetuate a stereotype
Quite slow
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makres Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and ni play makes Jack a dul; boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
Am I the only one that thinks this speech is mostly pointless?
He doesn't define the "contemplating thinking" into something with a result. This is plainly not in our culture for a reason - it's called differently, known as "relaxing", it's an activity opposed to work.
Watch the theory of play at TED instead.
wtf is he saying !
IT SMELLS LIKE POOP IN HERE!
@comeonewtf Which means you just don't understand. Are you an academic? Because you sound like a 16 year old. If you want to know what he is thinking about I suggest a(nother) degree!