Skip to main content.
Bard HAC
Bard HAC
  • About sub-menuAbout
    Hannah Arendt

    “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”

    Join HAC
    • About the HAC
      • Our Staff
      • About Hannah Arendt
      • Our Location
  • Programs sub-menuPrograms
    Hannah Arendt

    We bring Arendt's fearless style of thinking to a wide audience.

    • Our Programs
    • Courage to Be
    • Campus Plurality Forum
    • Virtual Reading Group
    • Affiliated Programs
    • Meanings of October 27th
    • Democracy Through Sortition
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Hannah Arendt

    “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.”

    • Academics at HAC
    • Undergraduate Courses
    • Practice of Courage Courses
  • Fellows sub-menuFellows
    HAC Fellows

    “Action without a name, a 'who' attached to it, is meaningless.”

    • Fellows
    • Postdoctoral Fellows
    • Student Fellowships
  • Conferences sub-menuConferences
    Hannah Arendt
    Conference 2019

    Fall Conference 2019
    “Racism and Antisemitism”

    Thursday, Thursday, October 10 – Friday, October 11
    • Conferences
    • Past Conferences
    • Registration
    • Our Location
  • Publications sub-menuPublications
    Hannah Arendt
    Subscribe to Amor Mundi

    “I've begun so late, really only in recent years, to truly love the world ... Out of gratitude, I want to call my book on political theories Amor Mundi.”

    • Publications
    • Amor Mundi
    • HA Journal
    • Further Reading
  • Events sub-menuEvents
    Hannah Arendt

    “It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.”

    —Hannah Arendt
    • HAC Events
    • Upcoming
    • Archive
  • Join sub-menu Join HAC
    Hannah Arendt

    “Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.”

    • Join HAC
    • Become a Member
    • Subscribe
    • Virtual Reading Group
    • Join HAC
               
  • Search

Amor Mundi

Amor Mundi Home

Simulation: "Getting Rid of the Digital Divide"

08-18-2010

In her book Simulation and Its Discontents, MIT Professor Sherry Turkle argues that what simulation wants is immersion in the simulated world that is so complete that it serves as a proxy for the real. Turkle's worry, or the worry she reports from the scientists she studies in her book, is that simulation replaces reality with a deceptive simulacrum that is so compelling that we take it as real even when it is not. I have discussed Turkle's thesis here. And here.

In a fascinating TED lecture, Pranav Mistry--Turkle's colleague at MIT--has a completely different take, arguing that simulation will free us from computers that divide us from the real world. By "getting rid of the digital divide," Mistry argues, simulation will actually make us more human.  Watch the video of his TED talk here and see if you agree?

http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

More human? Less human? Differently human. I think it undeniable that this technology will change our world and our understanding of ourselves.

Remember to attend the Arendt Center's Conference, Human Being in an Inhuman Age.

Footer Contact
Contact HAC
Bard College
PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
845-758-7878
arendt@bard.edu
Join the HAC
Become a Member
Subscribe to Amor Mundi
Join the Virtual Reading Group
Follow Us
Image for Twitter
Image for Facebook
Image for YouTube
Image for Instagram