Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Technology is Kant

I don't understand technology. Now don't get me wrong, I know more about technology than most people. I can write my own html and once upon a time knew some basic C+(or was that C++?). I understand that everything is based on 1's and 0's which basically are either closed or open gates that lets the little pulse of energy go through. And I can pretty much figure out how to use any computer program there is with minimal instruction and a lot of playing.

But I can't let myself think about how little gates and an electric charge makes music, or a picture, or a video game show up on my screen because I just don't understand it. And I don't like things I can't understand, so I try not to think about them if there's no hope of me understanding.

It's the same as Kant's phenomenal and noumenal worlds. I can use the phenomenal world pretty well. I think I understand it pretty well, know physical laws and stuff like that, can calculate the air speed velocity of a swallow, know how hard to kick a soccer ball to get it to go a certain distance, that sort of thing, but once I think about why, about the how behind what I know, I have to stop thinking because I don't know, can't understand, and will never know or understand. And I hate it. Stupid noumenal world. All I have to say to it is, "Mahnoumena!"

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