Technology and Transcedence: The Seeker in the Digital Age

A lecture and discussion on Human Being/Being Human in the Digital Age, part 5 of a 6 part President's Class series

About this Event
If truth, power, and love are shaped by technology, what about transcendence? The seeker in the digital age has more information at her fingertips than ever before, and knowledge is so prevalent that it is difficult to imagine anything that remains esoteric or hidden. Information and knowledge, while necessary, do not equal wisdom. Can technology help us get there?

About the Speaker:
Greg Salyer, Ph.D. is the President of the Philosophical Research Society. For twenty-five years, he has been an administrator and scholar in higher education institutions, but his highest calling has always been that of teacher. Trained in interdisciplinary studies, Dr. Salyer moves through the disciplines of literature, philosophy, and religious studies looking for and helping his students find practical and profound wisdom in the stories, texts, and ideas created all over the world and throughout history.

About the series:
It is not hyperbole to say that technology has never been more integrated into our lives as human beings, but it is also true that such deep integration calls into question the nature of being human. Join us for a six-week lecture/discussion series that examines our fraught relationship with technology and comes to terms with what it means to be human in the digital age through the following questions: What ancient concepts and stories speak to our conflicted and intimate relationship with the tools we use that in turn use us? What is the status of truth in the digital age? How does technology employ and redistribute power? How does technology change our favorite emotion—love? What about the seeker in the digital age? Finally, what do human beings and being human mean in an age of artificial intelligence and cyborgs?

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Image credit: Moebius

[michelledavison]

I am OBSESSED WITH ETYMOLOGY! I love these lectures, THANK YOU! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[nicksherm]

This masterful content could command a massive audience in 2020. I wish you lots of growth.

[mysteriousbreakfast]

Do you think you could also list the references from the lecture? I'm particularly having troubling finding the quote from Michael Hayne that was mentioned towards the end

[thesleeper]

I call the discovery of a world or reality outside of our world "The Cosmic Moth", based on the moth from the movie called The Island.

[zboys]

If my comment gets deleted from the comments what would be the reasons ? Why ?

[bouddhas]

Hm. Love your contents, love this talk, but omitting to mention that Von Braun was a nazi and got picked by the US after WW2 along with hundreds of his peers is... not so cool. Some say that he was “one of the good ones”, which I don’t know how true it can even be, but claiming he came to America because he chose to and was “reformed”, sounds just wrong. IMO, not knowing the details of his personal values, the very least we can say is that his past is... shady. I’d be happy to be proven wrong.