“Of what lasting benefit has been man’s use of science and of the new instruments which his research brought into existence?”
I shall give you another ten seconds to re-read Vannevar Bush’s question before I carry on…
- Increased control of material environment, he says.
- Then there’s the improvement of food, clothing and shelter,
- Security and my personal favourite:
- Release from the “bondage of bare existence.”
Vannevar Bush’s sentiments echoes my very own. Increased evidence may prove facts and truth about our researches, but in the same way it also stipulates a mental breakdown. Take a simple psychological case study about say, Bandura’s controversial Bobo doll experiment. How many other researches have been funded under this parent research that produces a staggering amount of findings and conclusions of which we just do not have the time to grasp?
Follow up experiments in ’63, a refinement of the experiment itself in ’65. The result? Inconclusive and predictions that are not fully proved. Has your head exploded yet?
I love how the conduit between these two different worlds comes down to the “new and powerful instrumentalities” that come in handy dandy.
Would you call me a cinemaphile? Probably too defined for the ever-changing me. Let’s go with movie buff. As a movie buff, the very idea of machines having interchangeable parts that does as it’s told is cheesecake any day, all day. Perhaps if no new materials for recording appear, these present ones are almost always in the process of modification and upgrade.
Example, oui? Check out the Lytro camera. LOVE its concept. You take a photograph and there is no fixed depth of field. And it used to look like this but now it looks like this + more features.
I think it’s say to say that it’s a wonderful time to be alive!
… but then it really does give me lots more to think about.