Yes

Werner Herzog talks about psychiatry as a dark, inhuman science. I believe he is onto something. This article about the difference between having sex and making love also illuminates an important and under-discussed topic: how we are voluntarily dehumanizing ourselves with our reliance on certain scientific and technological practices (the twin towers are facebook and psychotherapy).

Today there is no doubt that we tend compulsively to think in terms of object, function, or mechanism whenever we consider the incalculably human. Love is something to be “worked at” like a problem in mathematics that must be solved for the sake of its practical application. Friendship is called a “support system.” A Pascalian terror before the cold immensity of the universe is excessive “stress,” as if one were absorbing too much force for the mental “structure” to distribute and resolve successfully. For post-structuralists, a novel or a poem is only the manifestation of an “abstract model.” Wisdom is a kind of “flexible adaptability.” Desire is libidinal “tension” which must be “discharged.” And what was once called “making love,” an expression that however glibly it was employed still retained the implication of a genetic mystery, is today airily dismissed as “having sex,” a phrase which seems to concede in the direction of honesty but really betrays our attitude of therapeutic mechanism — like having an enema, a check-up, or an operation. Sex is an excellent way of running the machine.

The cybernetic revolution has only abetted this most infectious of diseases. We not only tend to regard ourselves as biological computers but have begun to fall in love with cute little nuclear-powered robots with numbers for names and fuse boxes for brains or with the nimble and magical denizens of simulated realities. Some of these can even build sculptures of light to create a Halo of nobility and bravely accompany us into the game world. The joke is that we will have to wait until the Grade-B humanoids take over the world for the numinous and spiritual dimension of life to make its retributive comeback. At some critical point in this manganese utopia the robot will insensibly begin to consider his support system as a friend, his repair facility as a prophet, and his cell recharger as that most profound and unsearchable of mysteries, a spouse.

There is an ethics at work underneath the computerization of the human experience. One of the chief conquests of the computer is the practice of internet dating. Think about this practice fundamentally - it is willfully ceding one of the most obviously important and biggest decisions one will make in their life: choice of spouse - to a computer. Sure...I know what people are saying...the computer doesn't choose, it just weeds down the choices to good matches, etc, etc, and the people are still making the choice, it is just a tool, etc. Perhaps.

An interesting counter-example is Game of Thrones, the popular fantasy series on HBO, which is heavily influenced by midevil English traditions. With respect to marriage, they are largely arranged marriages through families and for strategic alliances and so forth. But what the show does a good job of depicting is how characters exert influence and make decisions within the context of such practices. For instance, when Robb Stark needs a crucial ally in his war against the Lannisters, he agrees to marry one of Lord Frey's daughters AND for his younger sister to marry one of the sons, thus tying the houses together. (One of the great scenes in the entire show, especially for Theon Greyjoy's giggling reaction throughout the entire process). Marriage is a big theme throughout the show - the failed marriage between Robert Baratheon and Cerci Lannister - the potential future marriage of Prince Joffrey and Sanza - but remember that the individuals involved still have a vote. They can veto or get vetoed. There are consequences, but there is also flexibility. Marriages can be refused, undermined, or possibly even work, all within these set of practices. My point isn't that we ought to return to a caste system and arranged marriages. My point is that we recognize it is A SYSTEM with certain underlying ethics. At the heart of the caste system is the idea of divine rights of kings and of hereditary rights and other, ancient practices. We do not believe in these things. We believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and other formulations of the idea of freedom and liberty. But my main point is that the idea of internet dating is not neutral. It is rooted in an ethic - a new ethic - an ethic that is different from arranged marriage and also different from prior practices of marriage in America where people meet in school or in jobs or through friends or family.

So? What is at stake with internet dating and other modes of ceding control of our identities and selves to the computer. I would say - at the core - is the attempt to distance what it means to be human from the physical. It is an attempt to suggest the physical - our bodies - are what ultimately limit us. This is not dissimilar from the old mind-body distinction or the old body-soul distinction, only that this new cyber-reality doesn't seem particular concerned with the spiritual - it posits a theory that if only we can computerize and crunch enough numbers and get enough data - that we can unlock the mysteries of human experience. We can find our best potential match through the computer (internet dating). We can create the best versions of ourselves (via Facebook) and we can have access to all the knowledge collected in the history of the world in our pocket (via the internet on iphones).

There is a certain appeal to these ideas. My only problem: it is a bunch of bullshit. I see no evidence that the computer picks better matches than simply meeting the people with whom you cross paths. I see Facebook as bringing out the lamest, most narcissistic versions of ourselves. And I see most of the internet just a bunch of noise and very little knowledge - and what's more - the knowledge that is out there, takes industry to find, and those with such industry could probably have found such knowledge without the internet (as they did for the 1000s of years it didn't exist).

And so what of this idea of getting away from the physical? After all, it is our bodies which eventually give out and cause us to die, correct? Wouldn't it just be preferable to be brains in the vat with a brilliant scientist pushing electrodes to give us pleasure? Endless, eternal pleasure?

Methinks this isn't the point of human existence and so don't advocate moves in that direction - such as internet dating.