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Title: TechGnosis : Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information by Erik Davis ISBN: 0-609-80474-X Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 16 November, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 (14 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Wonderful fusion of technology and the religious imagination
Comment: Erik Davis has long been a pioneer of the borderline between religious and spiritual imaginative systems and technological inventions. In Techgnosis he focuses on information technologies through the ages and shows us how various infomrations systems have become powerful loci for religious and spiritual dreams. Beginning with the word itself Davis brilliantly explores the magical, mystical, spiritual appeal of symbols and codes, and the various technologies invented for transmitting them. Revealing the hidden hermetic underbelly of the Western technological enterprise, Davis offers us a thoughtful and insightful look at how electricity and silicon have become powerful loci for new forms of mysticism. Engaging, witty, and always highly opinionated, Davis is a rare and welcome voice in the new technology scene. Techgnosis will inform, enchant, amuse, and at times probably annoy you - but it will never bore you!
Rating: 5
Summary: A magical investiagion of 3000 years of being and technology
Comment: Davis sets his sights high - to explain the philosophical and mystical history of the West against the development of our technologies. While the argument is often made that technologies are value-neutral, Davies proves - conclusively - that our technological fancies rise from our intrinsic spiritual natures (explicit or implicit), even as every new scientific discovery equally spawns a new era of spiritual "research". From the Emerald Tablets of Hermes Trismegistos to the noospheric prognostications of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - who may have predicted the Internet a half century before it became a physical reality - Davies shows that being and doing, in the guise of spirituality and techology, are the twinned halves of the cultural DNA within which we operate.
Delightfully, this book is not just a dry retelling of history; Davis has a point of view, which is neither fancifully utopian or pessimistically Orwellian, but instead focuses on the reality of t! he isomorphism between what we believe about the world around us and what we believe about the life within us.
This book isn't just a good read, it's a necessary read, a clever antidote to all of the business-as-usual explanations of the age of information, and contextualizes our era against the last 3,000 years of history of the West. Anyone interested in the history of science, the history of religion, and the history and ethics of technology should read this book.
Rating: 2
Summary: Ritual writing
Comment: One of the funniest things about Techgnosis: Myth, Magic + Mysticism in the Age of Information, Erik Davis's much-ballyhooed 1999 release, was how it skewed the conventions of 'Frisco technological mysticism, managing to be distinctively perverse in a world already saturated with impenetrable tech writing and books with incredibly long and pretentious titles. At times the writing was laborious - tedious psychedelic musings, as Davis' Neo-geek garb, pseudo-intellectual facial hair, and droning point of view plugged you into the visionary amorality of robots.
With its oft-seen spiritual imagery and techno-porno bent, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic + Mysticism in the Age of Information finds Davis thin and wandering, blowing ploys that never worked before anyway - long words that no one is meant to understand, echoes of better writing, loose jamming that should have been edited into non-existence.
Split into a 'look at how smart I am' side and a 'stealing lots of stuff from more talented writers' side, the book doesn't cohere - whatever Davis has been doing for the last ten years since his glory days as a Rolling Stone contributor, he hasn't been practicing much.
Sure, there are moments - the spine features an amazing font, the index is beautifully alphabetised and the Introduction admirably sums up Davis's creed ("Use words with a silent G and you'll surely alienate the unwashed masses"). A shuffling, upbeat passage of silly suppositions and the best use of Xena, Warrior Princess references since The Simpsons, the Intro expresses a bare logic of desire ("I want people to think that I'm smart, but also cool") that makes reading it seem as fun as sticking rusty nails into your eyeballs.
Chapter 1's miasma begins with 'a completely generalised statement about humanity', which starts out as fine, brain-twisting, leather-elbow-patch academia, but loses it after Davis uses the words Dionysian, Apollonian and Bacchantes in the same sentence. I haven't been able to get through the rest of the book without nodding out - the distinct lack of clarity is pleasant enough, but I expected more.
Unlike Margaret Wertheim or Richard Coyne, Davis hasn't figured out that a successful Techno-spiritual fusion requires brevity. The great bits here - mystery of faith, cliched exploration of tech-angst, an endearing lack of direction - are overwhelmed by ego-driven writing and ambiguous references to overtly obscure source material. Two-thirds of the way through, Techgnosis starts reading like a fourteen-hour layover in Kashmir, a long-distance runaround with only Wired magazine and a pack of purple Bubblicious to pass the time.
Author Bio:
Davis is best known as the man who gave two stars out of five in his Rolling Stone review to Ritual De Lo Habitual, the 1991 seminal rock album from Jane's Addiction - universally regarded as a Classic and the album that launched alternate music. His assured mix of pretension and lack of musical taste has seen him often compared to Dick Rowe, the Decca executive who dramatically missed the boat when he passed on a little-known skiffle band called The Beatles.
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Title: The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention by David F. Noble ISBN: 0140279164 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics by N. Katherine Hayles, Katherine Hayles ISBN: 0226321460 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.20 |
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Title: Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution by Francis Fukuyama ISBN: 0312421710 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Little Book of Coincidence by John Martineau ISBN: 0802713882 Publisher: Walker & Co Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Li: Dynamic Form in Nature by David Wade ISBN: 0802714102 Publisher: Walker & Company Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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