Webster’s Online Dictionary says that an algorithm is “a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end.” I don’t know how all of that stuff works, but it seems like a lot of my so-called “choices” are forced upon me by endless algorithms. A human is only free to do what a human can do. I can’t choose to fly like a bird. We think we chose that one movie, but the truth is, out of the offerings shown to us, we were only ever gonna choose that one anyway, right? It’s easy to not choose something you would never have chosen in the first place. It’s like people who brag about not doing this or that. If you have no inclination to do this thing or that, like doing illicit drugs or something, then what are you really bragging about? C. S. Lewis puts it this way, “Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler?” The point is, the very thing you love about yourself may in fact have less to do with you and more about your genetics and upbringing. Anyway, that's over my pay grade.
On some level, most of us are conscious of the digital algorithms that direct or at least greatly influence our daily lives…online, anyway. But what about in real life? James K. A. Smith, in his book, “Desiring the Kingdom,” writes, “Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit-forming practices in which we participate, it is the rituals and practices . . . that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world. . .That is, the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions.” In this instance Smith is talking about the simple act of going to the mall or maybe a ball game and the affect that has on our desires. What’s the point? Earlier he writes, “What if education wasn’t first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love?” That’s the point. We think everything begins in the mind or our worldview and flows from there, but what if, as Smith takes great pains to explain throughout his book, that it is actually the daily habits we engage in that form our desires, whether for good or bad?
Thus, the algorithms of life. What are you DOING every day? It’s easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that doing this or that thing won’t affect us. But it will. Smith writes that, “what defines us is what we love.” And those loves, “the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions.” What rituals and rhythms are we engaging in? Where are we going? What are we doing? Webster’s says that an algorithm is “a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end.” What end are the rhythms of your life leading you to?Maybe, sometimes, a Ctrl-Alt-Delete is in order. To quote C.S. Lewis again, “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when doing arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pig headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.”
On some level, most of us are conscious of the digital algorithms that direct or at least greatly influence our daily lives…online, anyway. But what about in real life? James K. A. Smith, in his book, “Desiring the Kingdom,” writes, “Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit-forming practices in which we participate, it is the rituals and practices . . . that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world. . .That is, the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions.” In this instance Smith is talking about the simple act of going to the mall or maybe a ball game and the affect that has on our desires. What’s the point? Earlier he writes, “What if education wasn’t first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love?” That’s the point. We think everything begins in the mind or our worldview and flows from there, but what if, as Smith takes great pains to explain throughout his book, that it is actually the daily habits we engage in that form our desires, whether for good or bad?
Thus, the algorithms of life. What are you DOING every day? It’s easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that doing this or that thing won’t affect us. But it will. Smith writes that, “what defines us is what we love.” And those loves, “the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions.” What rituals and rhythms are we engaging in? Where are we going? What are we doing? Webster’s says that an algorithm is “a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end.” What end are the rhythms of your life leading you to?Maybe, sometimes, a Ctrl-Alt-Delete is in order. To quote C.S. Lewis again, “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when doing arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pig headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.”
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