For today’s class, we delved deeper into Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows and read the third chapter. Before we discuss the reading, spend ten minutes to write a summary of your reading in your notebooks. Type up your summary later, and post it here as a comment to this blog post.
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This chapter goes deep into intellectual matureness, and how our human history reflects that. or example, Carr starts off the chapter by discussing a little kid drawing a sun as just a line and a yellow ball at the corner of his page. Well, this can be translated into the beginnings of a child’s intellectual maturity being displayed. On broader scale, many thousands of years ago, we didn’t have a need to be precise with drawings, so a description of an area or an object would have been drawn like that. As time goes on, we became more precise as he demand for maps grew. What Carr is trying to say is that the same rate as a child’s intellectual maturity increases, it is the same rate as humans in general increased their maturity. One thing that really capture my attention was when Carr stated that “Every technology is an expression of human will.” In other words, the more modern we wish for this era to be, the more innovations will start appearing due to the will we have, the desire we have of living in a much more modern era.
During the third chapter of the book “The Shallows” Nicolas Carr stated by mentioning that our brains increase the ability of develop and become more sophisticated and prepared as time goes on. He used as an example a little girl that was ask to drew different things, she drew all of them, but in geometric shapes like circle squared, triangle ETC. As she grow up her drawing skills were becoming better and better, she was learning how to used the different tools that were giving to her like rulers, a compass, a proctartor. This example was also connected to how technology and people has change through time, as the technology goes beyond our expectation our skills to used it and control it increases too as well. He used as an example the clock, at first the clock was invented by monk that wanted to keep time of the daily activities, as time goes by the clock become more complex, like first it was manual and then it become digital and on and on. We have the tools of creating a new world that we think it has all the necessary stuff to survive.
The third chapter called “Tools of the mind” in Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” revolves around the idea of intellectual maturity. This intellectual maturity is conveyed by Carr through him explaining how we create drawings, or maps of our surroundings, and further expand upon that. He also goes on describing how the human intellect has vastly developed with the times. With time progressing, this enabled us humans to produce different pieces of technology in order to aid us in various different aspects. The main purpose with advancing with technology was in order to do things that with just relying on the human intellect alone, it would be almost impossible to achieve. An example of this is where Carr describes technology being an expression of human will. He tells us that “through our tools, we seek to expand our power and control over our circumstances-over nature, over time and distance, over one another.” He then mentions different evolutionary pieces of technology that us humans have made, in order to further convey this point of his. He states the fighter jet, as we use this to extend our physical strength, dexterity, or resilience. He uses a microscope to show that we use this to enhance our senses. He even goes on to mentioning birth control, since this would to allow us to reshape nature in order to better serve our wants and needs.
In Nicholas Carr’s third chapter he talks about the tools of the mind and how they have affected humans over time. At first he starts off talking about maps and how they developed over time along with the way we as humans think. With the full development of the map the mind could now translate what was empty space into something less than a natural phenomenon and more into something understandable and conceptual. For example with the development of maps came the development of art, to an extent, which was then translated into distance in relation to other objects. Because of that we now not only saw these objects, (mountains, trees, river, etc…) as wonders but we now viewed them as landmarks and were able to begin accurate navigation instead of just wondering about. Along with the maps came the clock, which was one of the tools that, ” … played a crucial role in propelling us out of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment” (Carr, 43). According to Carr, the clock redefined how we looked at our selves and the world around us. Before the clock we had other time keeping devices that were not as accurate and really weren’t effective. Then came the clock which made us look at he world in one uniform manner that was evenly divided up into specific increments of time. We began to work with the clock and plan days more accurately which lead to higher thinking. Carr also goes on to say that technology is a projection of human will. For example all technologies can be traced back to at least one of these ideas of human will; physical strength, dexterity, or resilience, the range or sensitivity of our senses, and/or enables us to reshape nature to better serve our needs or desires. Carr’s overall motive for this chapter was to show that the tools we create to aid in our life are merely extensions from our mind and human will. They also aid us in viewing the world differently.
In chapter 3 of “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr, he discusses how maps and clocks came to be and how our mind uses these inventions. During our childhood most of us are generally drawing what we see with crayons and paper. We drew the sun, sky, sea, our house and etc. However, people in general go through intellectual maturation as they grow older. Carr relates this to the beginning of map making and how the quality of maps became more realistic. He points out that cartography was not simply mirroring the development of the human mind, but guides the advances, too. Also that these types of technology are an expression of the human will. Our brains are always looking for information constantly. With technology at people’s finger tips, they can expand their power and control over their circumstances.
In chapter 3 of The Shallow by Nicholas Carr, he talks about the tools and types of technology that we use. We are told that there are four types of technology. The first being one to extend physical strength, another being to extend the range of sensitivity of senses, another being to help reshape nature and lastly one to extend or support mental powers. With all these types of technologies, we are guided in what we do. We use this technology as a tool for making our lives easier and extend our minds and wills. In this chapter, we are also told that writing is one of the most broad and mind altering inventions humans created. Reading and writing aren’t parts of every human whereas language is. With this said, since this world has so many languages, it doesn’t surprise me that different languages take up different parts of our brains.
In Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows” chapter three, Nicolas stated that our brains have the ability to develop and become more sophisticated as time goes on. One example that he used was the way a little girl that was ask to draw a picture of a landscape, she drew all sorts of features, but she drew it in geometric shapes like squares and triangle. As they girl grows up her drawing skills well start to progress, becoming better and better until she learns how to use different tools that help her like rulers and protractor. This example was also connected to how technology and our brains have changed through time. As the technology advances so does our skill to used and control it progresses as well. Another example he uses is the concept of time and the advancements of the clock. At first the clock was invented for monk that needed to keep track of the time for their daily activities, and as time went on the clock become more complex, originally it was manual and then it became automatic and so on. With both the invention of the clock and the progression of our artistic abilities, we when on to creating complex maps and becoming more punctual .
In chapter 3 of Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” he talks about human’s intellectual maturity and how it changes over time. He starts off by giving examples of a little girl drawing things in a simple manner with shapes like circles and triangles. He goes on to say that the older she gets and the increase demand of more sophisticated maps are required she begins drawing more complex to please this demand. She uses the tools around her to give more accurate drawings and maps that we could use to better understand the world around us. He says that just like the little girl grew up to use better tools to create better maps humans all mature to use better tools to help us do better things. Clocks are another thing that Carr says is a product of human will and a tool used to again understand the place we live in.
In chapter three in the book “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr, he starts to talk about a child drawing takes the yellow crayon and makes a circle and calls it a sun. he continues to narrate what the kid is doing.he then mentions that get older , goes to school and while in she draws an outline of the United states from memory, she then puts the states and draws five starts on her state. I believe he is stating how our way of mapping technology changed affected our brains way of thinking. He moves on to the clock when it was first invented our ways of how we worked, going shopping, and how we entertained our self changed and it changed the way we thinking. These “intellectual technologies” changed us and how we do things in the modern world and he is trying to show us how the internet is doing the samething.
The tools of mind is very important aspect of us. The knowledge we require over the years impact the way we see and perceive information given to us. Such a little thing we draw on paper, gives out a more meaningful purpose to us. We seek to gain more knowledge any mean necessary to fully understand everything around us. Thus was the introduction of machinery. Technology has affected our tool of minds be the better or the worst. Such example, is the introduction of the clock, where we human gave a new meaning of time. The simple concept of change the way we perceive our days, by knowing that we are limited everyday by certain time to do something. The clock played an important role in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and during the Enlightenment. Understand the role of a technology can impacted the way we think, the way we should do work and how the minds supposed to work. Many would argue that technology have already control and dictated the way we live because we rely on them to often than we need to. Karl Max stated “the windmill gives you society with the industrial capitalist.” He meant by this is that he believes that our society technology drives and dictates the process of our social structure and cultural values. This is called Technological determinism, which is an interesting theory that is I believe is true. It is important to note that the reason certain machine can change our life so fast, is that every technological advance often marks the turning point of lives. Technology is a luxury that the common people didn’t had in the old days and as a result of that we used it to its fullest potential. It is our intellectual technologies that have the greatest and most lasting power over what and how we think.
Chapter 3 of Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” introduces us to how any kind of tool can influence our thoughts and perspectives. As Nicholas Carr started, ” every technology is an expression of human will. Through our tools, we seek to expand our power and control over our circumstances-over nature, over time and distance, over one another” (Carr, 44). Carr then goes on to mention how we can divide each type technology into four separate categories. One being the type that extends our physical strength such as the jet fighter. Another being the type that extends the range of a sensitivity of our senses such as the microscope. The third being, for example, a reservoir which reshapes nature to better serve our needs. The fourth being intellectual technologies such as maps and clocks which support mental powers that allow us to perform calculations, expands capacity of memory and much more. Carr later introduces us to two contradicting views about technologies role in society. Technological determinism argues that technological progress is the primary factor influence the course of human history. Instrumentalists, however, argue that tools are just neutral artifacts and favor the downplay in technology.
In this chapter Carr talks about the tools of the mind. The way our brain process information, he talks about map making skill and that we interpret what we see from the drawing to what we know. This to me sound similar to when my mine try to make since of something, but in the process of doing that, it might add some stuff that’s not there, stuff that I had from pass experiences. He said that throughout our existence we were going through the process of mapmaking. We first start as caveman carving sketches on the walls of caves and as we started to evolve technology started to play a big roll. As human we use technology to better our life. We use it in order to expand our power and control over our circumstances such as nature, time and distance over one another. Technology also changes the way we communicate, it this by altering the way we speak and listen, or read and write and since it is our primary form of conscious thought, it have a strong influence on our intellectual lives. One of the major technology that start our written language was the alphabet, without this they would be no form of general writing. This was very important because it didn’t just let us communicate, but let us keep track of history. Something that is very important for our existence.
In this chapter Nicolas Carr talks about how our brains process different things. Our brains go through a process called intellectual maturation. Our bodies and brains act out as a map, a map that is leading us to where we need to be. It uses directions, formulas and other types of tools. This something o can relate to because when I’m trying to figure something out my brain starts to think of different ways I can complete the task I’m doing. Technology has changed the way we live. We use it to communicate and get work done. It’s very important because it lets us stay on track with the thibgs we need to do and get our work done.
In the fourth chapter in Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows” he starts of with how the technology of writing first started, we mark anything on any smooth face rock, wood scraps, strips of bark, etc. He mentions that they had the advantage of being cheap and having plenty of it but the disadvantage of being able to be lost, broken, or damaged easily. He then dates 2500 BC, Egyptians started to craft scrolls from the trees they had called papyrus. The scrolls were a big advantage over the stones because is was less heavy and easily carriable but they were expensive. He also talks about Deep reading on how when we get really into the ready we read the whole passage per say and when we skimp read we only read the first sentence to get what they are starting with and then skip a few line and read half of the sentence and that goes on until the end of the passage.
In Nicholas Carr “the shallows”, Carr introduces chapter number three “tool of the mind”. Carr describes art work from a young child. After Carr goes in depth about how this simple doodling advanced. Our environment and age throughout time can improve the amount of details we add on to the simple drawing. Carr mentions that primitive humans did the something. The early human’s art work was the primitive medium of communication back then. In today’s society the primitive drawing has evolve into maps. Moreover, maps are very unique, they have the affordance of being a medium and a tool. Mapmakers put so much experience, thought and artistic detail into maps. “EVERY TECHNOLOGY IS an expression of human will. Through our tools, we seek to expand our power and control over our circumstances—over nature, over time and distance, over one another” – Carr
In my opinion, this is very true because humans try to do the impossible in order to advance as race. I notice every time I’m late for an event, tend to want the train to go faster than normal speed. Humans made fire arms to hunt animals and gather food for others. in addition, weapon had a final destructive purpose and that is to kill what at that moment seem like the enemy. Furthermore, Carr mentions language and the history and how that same history is similar to the history of the mind. This took me some time understand. In other words, this means that if manage to think primitively early in life, now that we have a more organize form of express. The result of this is affined thought that we can share with another.
In the fourth chapter of “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr, entitled Tools of The Mind, Carr talks about how the advances of technology helped shape the society that we live in today. Things like the map, the clock, and writing are considered intellectual technologies, and how the internet might be having the same affect on us. These technologies are put into four categories: extending physical strength, extending the range or sensitivity of our senses, reshaping nature to better serves our desires or needs, and supporting mental powers.