{"id":141,"date":"2024-02-22T11:58:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T16:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/?p=141"},"modified":"2024-02-22T11:58:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T16:58:31","slug":"technology-and-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/2024\/02\/22\/technology-and-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology and Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technology and Time<\/strong><\/p>\n

S. M. Gollmer<\/p>\n

To avoid the negative impact of technology I mentioned we need to ensure it does not undermine who we are experientially and socially.\u00a0 We begin here because I feel the root cause of the world\u2019s problems start with us!\u00a0 If we tackle the perceived threats of climate change, enhanced function viruses, and artificial intelligence without evaluating what is wrong with us, we are only treating symptoms.\u00a0 We will only implement incomplete solutions and generate additional problems.<\/p>\n

It is hard to know where to start when evaluating humanity as a whole and us as individuals.\u00a0 As a result, I will begin with something as simple as time.\u00a0 In the creation account of Genesis, one purpose for the lights in the sky was for signs, seasons, days, and years (Genesis 1:14).\u00a0 Years correspond to the orbit of the earth around the sun, days with the rotation of the earth on its axis, and seasons with the tilt of the earth\u2019s axis.\u00a0 Signs could imply a number of things, which I will not delve into.\u00a0 The point being that time comprises a key component of the created order.\u00a0 But do we look at time in the same way as people did in the past?<\/p>\n

Koine Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, uses several words to indicate time.\u00a0 The two I want to focus on are Chronos<\/em> and Kairos<\/em>.\u00a0 The first refers to an interval of time, such as an hour, day, or year (Acts 13:18).\u00a0 The latter is used to convey an opportunity or season (Ephesians 5:16).\u00a0 Hours of the day could be estimated by the position of the sun in the sky or more precisely using sun dials and water clocks.\u00a0 However, what drove people\u2019s lives was seasons of planting and harvest and using daylight while it was available.<\/p>\n

It is not until the fourteenth century, when mechanical clocks were installed in city towers, that a shift in the perception of time began to occur.\u00a0 Accuracy of clocks steadily improved and by the seventeenth century Huygen\u2019s pendulum clock had an accuracy of 99.99%.\u00a0 In 1761 Harrison was able to construct a chronometer that maintained its accuracy in rough seas, thus enabling mariners to determine their longitude within one half of a degree.\u00a0 By 1884 Greenwich Mean Time was established and Chronos<\/em> could be synchronized around the globe.<\/p>\n

So profound is this shift in perception of time that Mumford in Technics and Civilization<\/em> states that \u201cthe key machine of the modern industrial age\u201d is the clock, not the steam engine.\u00a0 He goes on to say, \u201cThe bells of the clock tower almost defined urban existence.\u00a0 Time-keeping passed into time-serving and time-accounting and time rationing.\u00a0 As this took place, Eternity ceased gradually to serve as the measure and focus of human actions\u201d (p. 14).<\/p>\n

Precision measurement of time and space made way for the advancement of science and technology.\u00a0 Simultaneously it reordered society to value minutes and seconds over the variability and uncertainty of human relationships.\u00a0 Some human societies hold adamantly to their Kairos<\/em> perception of time.\u00a0 But this is done at the expense of competing well in a global economy, which values efficiency and productivity.\u00a0 Technology presses everyone into its mold and those who don\u2019t conform must count the cost.<\/p>\n

I mentioned that the problem begins with humanity and us as individuals, but it seems the problem is technology and its impact on us.\u00a0 Representing people as interchangeable parts in a vast machine dehumanizes us and portrays humanity as less than God intended.\u00a0 Is it possible for us to live in a technological world and still become a complete person?\u00a0 That is the challenge of the twenty-first and twenty-second century!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Technology and Time S. M. Gollmer To avoid the negative impact of technology I mentioned we need to ensure it does not undermine who we are experientially and socially.\u00a0 We begin here because I feel the root cause of the world\u2019s problems start with us!\u00a0 If we tackle the perceived threats of climate change, enhanced… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}