A Very Short History of Computers and Zen
The LISP Lab at MIT
People have become overwhelmed by social networking and computer technology.
Let’s go back and explore how and why smart devices and computers do what they do. Let’s go back to the basics.
A computer is nothing more than a tool, a device used to perform or facilitate manual, mechanical or technological tasks.
In order to create, sustain and grow your business, it will be ever more important to maximize your unique talents and gifts. The more efficient and effective you are at doing this, the greater the benefit. It is the availability of practical tools, especially computerized tools that will bring you what is needed to gain the greatest benefit at the lowest cost.
More than any other tools, computer tools are the ones that can best transform your weaknesses into strengths. It is a basic rule that if you want a job done right, you need a person who has the right tools to do the job. This a basic rule known by car mechanics, dentists, brain surgeons, masons, carpenters and even Capuchin monkeys.
Researchers have discovered that bearded capuchin monkeys in the wild understand the importance of tools. They will go through numerous stones until they find the right one to crack nuts. If a stone is too crumbly, too large or too small, they will reject it.
Sadly, there are many business people who are less effective than even monkeys in choosing the right tools. We humans are constantly influenced by emerging technologies that can radically transform and even destroy our way of seeing the world. In large economies, sophisticated tools and technology applied without an awareness of how to apply these emerging technologies can lead to unnecessary struggles and even business failure.
One of the most important skills for applying computer technology to the new global economy is the creation of models that support sustainability, respect local cultures, and which also support local businesses initiatives.
Here, we are creating systems that ensure that tools serve our most humanitarian instincts. The causes of technological problems and the solutions to these technology issues are addressed in the writings of the visionary economist E.F. Schumacher. Schumacher has influenced the theories embraced by many important economists and community activists. Many of his ideas have formed the basis for a concept known as “appropriate technology.”
There are two basic development theories within the concept of appropriate technology. These are:
- Intermediate Size.
- Intermediate Technology.
The importance of computers in these models is that they allow us to collect information that was once difficult to obtain, about the most obscure subjects. They also allow us to use social networking more effectively and allow others to locate, retrieve, analyze and store information about us.
Other pioneering thinkers in the development of computer science include Alonzo Church, Stephen Cole Kleene, Alan Turing, Emil Post and others, without whose ideas in mathematical logic, computer science could not have developed to the level of sophistication that it has.
For a computer to do more than simply perform advanced mathematical calculations, it must be able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making and translations between languages. This if the foundation of what is known as artificial intelligence.
Much AI work was done in the 1960s, in particular around the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The Takeaway
Many of the computer scientists in the early AI community had an interest in meditation and spiritual ideas based on paradox, ambiguity and contradiction, many of the patterns of thought found in Japanese Zen philosophy.
This approach to computer science went against the mainstream computer research of the day, which focused on creating computers that were driven by logic. The core of this group was part of “LISP,” a project at the (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, from the lab’s creation in 1959 to approximately 1983.
Many of these visionaries called themselves and their peers True Hackers. Their story is told in detail in the first part of Steven Levy’s book, Hackers.
©Lewis Harrison, all rights reserved.
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