The Mac-PC debate, whatever one Continue reading »
thinks of it, shares many elements of other debates
which fine minds have thought long and hard about.
These debates are very, very old, indeed, centuries
older than the Mac-PC debate obviously. But I
think what people have said about these old debates
is instructive for trying to understand the Mac-PC
debate. Specifically, people have throughout time
defined certain kinds of positions on the role
of reason in debate, and I think these positions
are seen in the Mac-PC debate.
One of the downsides of the Mac Continue reading »
Web, and web, is that things are not always tied
together. The same news story will run at various
sites but it is not often that one ties it together
with other related industry news, when in fact
there are such ties to be made. An issue pops
up one day and is gone the next day, and gone
forever. At most, an issue is carried on for a
few days, mostly at troubleshooting sites, as
software and hardware issues emerge and are solved.
This is the way it should be, of course. But as
a whole, the Mac Web lacks a certain “logic.”
What is worse, some single sites themselves lack
a logic.
I have been talking for some time Continue reading »
about the Web’s ability to break down barriers,
namely interpersonal barriers. I mentioned this
in the first part of this article series “The
Mac Web as Therapy.” And I have continued
to think about it since then. I am just a soul
looking for answers to the many questions I have.
One question is, “Why does the Web seem to
affect people like this?
Something has come to my attention Continue reading »
which I think may explain some of the things we
find on the Mac Web. Very simply, the Mac Web
seems to function as therapy for many. I see this
on several levels, but once we take it seriously
(and is there any other way to take it?), the
notion of the Mac Web as therapy makes a great
deal of sense. Of course, all therapy is a cure
for something, and the point here is to find out
what the Mac Web sures, if anything.
At one point Nietzsche defines “nihilism” Continue reading »
as “everything is permitted.” Dostoevsky
said “If God is dead, then everything is
permissible.” If this in fact is the core
of philosophical nihilism, then the Mac Web is
nihilistic. I have talked about nihilism generally,
about Apple’s nihilistic overtones, and now,
in the final installment of this series, I turn
to the Mac Web itself. It sure seems to this writer
that on the Mac Web indeed “everything is
permitted.” It also seems this won’t last
much longer.
Before we can create we must, Nietzsche
thought, destroy. So he said he does philosophy
“with a hammer.” And it is just this
point which I think Apple gets, though its customers
don’t always like it. Apple, in a sense, does
computer engineering with a hammer. This will
take a great deal of explaining. Sit back and
make sure the boss isn’t around.
In the first part of this series Continue reading »
on nihilism, Apple and the Mac Web, I said that
there was a “nihilistic element” to
much that Apple does and much of the writing on
the Mac web. This is not the same as saying that
both are nihilistic, however. I finished by saying
that the nihilistic element I see at Apple is
qualitatively different than that on the Mac Web.
Today I look at apple nihilism.
. . a nihilist is a man who judges of the world
as it is that it ought not to be, and that of
the world as it ought to be that it does not
exist.”
“I do philosophy
with a hammer.”
(Nietzsche,
The Will to Power)
If I were to describe much Continue reading »
of the Mac Web and even Apple’s philosophy and
“Think Different” and “1984″
ads in one word, it would have to be-nihilism.”
Actually, our whole culture is nihilistic to a
great degree; I even work with some nihilists.
They are nice guys who believe in nothing, literally.
Let me explain.
We all know the Apple
award winning ‘Think Different’ commercials. It’s
a toast, a tip of the hat, to the misfits, the
round pegs in square holes. Picasso. Coppola.
Feynman, and the rest. While many have written
commentaries on these ads, I think Apple is saying
more, something deeper, than has been made obvious.
And what it is saying has radical consequences
for many areas of our life. What it says can also
be abused rather easily, I will also show.
What is simple to forget: Continue reading »
‘Think Different’ is an ad campaign. I know, I
know, but Mac fanatics can forget things like
this. It is designed to sell computers and brand
the company. It is designed to get into people’s
minds and develop certain beliefs and desires
about and for a product. It has its roots back
in the ’1984′ classic commercial with its theme
of over throwing the status quo, a vision of non-conformity
and rebellion. Thinking different is this vision
stated in a new way.
When it comes to reality, I am a Continue reading »
realist. The danger of the web, however, is how
it affects this realism. One danger of webbing
(a verb, mind you), if there are any dangers at
all, is that it changes the way we think about
the world in ways that are not always good. Permanence
is one example. It is fundamental concept we all
have. We believe in permanence. If we catch a
killer twenty years after a murder we still convict
him. We do so with a clean conscience because
we believe some things are permanent, like the
killer’s identity and guilt.
I wrote Continue reading »
“The Mac Essence Parts I
& II”
over at MacOS daily.com (before it
closed) in order to make one simple
point. Okay, so I used almost 3800
words just to say it. But every assumption
I make rests on a prior assumption,
and I want to make mine clear when
I can. So I spent the effort just
to say this: “The essence of
the Mac as a computer is that
it is a Universal
Turing Machine; the essence of
the Mac as a Mac is that one
doesn’t notice its essence as
a computer.” But it is a very
important point and one I wish to
expand on here.
I cannot say that all Wintel users Continue reading »
are obnoxious. After all, my wife works on them,
and in the interests of family harmony I will
resist such generalizations. (Though I hasten
to add that she is a forced user at work, and
not a true lover, of Wintels.) But there are obnoxious
ones out there. I speak from experience. I knew
a person several years ago with whom I had very
little in common, although chance had thrown us
together on a committee. As the President of this
committee it was my job to keep it in line, and
give it a sense of direction. He didn’t like this,
and appeared to choose my Mac loyalty as the method
by which he would question my authority, being
the passive-aggressive type that he was. His favorite
line was, “So you own a Macintoy.” You know the
point of course: The Mac is a toy and not a real
computer, it is not a real machine. But if you
think about it, this claim is actually a complement.
I live in Continue reading »
college football country. It’s the only game around.
My parents loved the team, and I learned to love
the it because of them. Now, younger members of
the extended family are learning to love the team,
and they are taking their children to the games.
They will grow up loving the team too. The baton
is being passed to a new generation. It’s called
“tradition.” We are seeing the same thing on the
Mac Web and Apple generally.
I am going to break the cast I have Continue reading »
set in this article. I want to address some larger
issues other than the Mac and the Mac Web. But
if you use a computer at all, if you have ever
surfed the net, what I have to say applies to
you. For there is danger in what you are doing
right now.
Bridging the gap between appearance Continue reading »
and reality, and escaping skepticism, have never
been easy. It is one of the perennial issues
in philosophy. Trying to bridge the gap in a
new way was Plato’s
great philosophical achievement. Consider a
stick in water. Perception (what we actually
see) tells us one thing, but it is wrong, namely
that the stick is bent. Reason and memory, on
the other hand, tell us something else, which
is correct, namely, that the stick is still
straight; it only appears bent. So Plato
tells us the way to bridge the appearance-reality
gap is through the proper application of calm
and considered reason. Reason trumps perception
in epistemic conflicts. Perhaps it is time for
the Mac Web to take Plato’s advice. First, a
little background . . .
We have been contemplating the ad
campaigns of Apple and Microsoft. They are summarized
by two slogans as we all know: “Think Different,”
and “Where do you Want to Go Today?” Companies
adopt slogans to produce certain mental associations
in the consumer’s minds. They should be positive
and/or humorous associations. But after thinking
about them, and how, in fact, both companies act
in light of their slogans, we are convinced that
each assumes a different theory of human freedom.
We think this also explains the difference in
people’s experiences with each platform.
We were going to continue our series
on the attachments persons have to the Mac today.
But, then we read the Fortune magazine article
and interview of Steve Jobs. We could not let
this opportunity go by without commenting on it.
So that is what we will do. But in a way it also
dovetails nicely wit the article we were going
to write today.
The last Continue reading »
time we gave multiple examples of how we value
artifacts, including machines. I value my wedding
ring. I value tools which make me productive.
I value artifacts because of their beauty. This
should be enough to silence anyone who claims
that attachment to a Mac is irrational simply
because it is a machine or artifact. Using the
same logic as PC users, we would have to say that
the value we place on wedding rings, works of
art and certain tools is unjustified. This argument
from analogy shows the waywardness of their reasoning.
We also showed that under any given interpretation
of “machine,” “It’s just a machine” is not sufficient
to justify the claim that attachment to the Mac
is unjustified. We want to explore these themes
further this week. In the conclusion we will answer
the question, “Is the Mac just a machine?” The
answer may surprise you.
In Infinite
Loop 1 we examined the claim, made some by
PC users, that the loyalty some of us show the
Mac is ill-founded because it is after all “just
a machine.” This strikes us as rather interesting.
Why should attachment to the Mac be any different
than attachments persons have to other kinds of
artifacts? About a year ago I lost my wedding
ring. We rented a metal detector, we dug up the
yard, we even burned off the grass looking for
it. It meant a great deal to us to find it. Yet
using the same logic as PC users this was a waste
of time. My wedding ring, after all, is just a
piece of metal. Such heirlooms are only one example
of being attached to something nonhuman.
©1-1-2000 David Schultz
[This was the very first article published at Applelust.com]
Of Logos and Myth
It all started in the Garden Continue reading »
of Eden. Well, almost. We all know the story.
Soon after creation God brought Adam and Even
together in Paradise. The only prohibition was
not to eat of the fruit of the “tree of knowledge
of good and evil.” But they were deceived
and ate. Tradition has it that the fruit was an
apple; we really cannot say. It was fruit of some
kind, anyway. The result was expulsion from Paradise
and all the evil we find in the world. A simple,
nice theodicy.
Comments. Be heard!
MyMac Podcast #403
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