We live in an age captivated by technological progress. It's easy to see why – the power, the precision, the promise of control. But is there a hidden cost to placing technology on the highest pedestal? Could this focus overshadow something vital – our connection to life itself, potentially replacing a reverence for life with something colder, more detached?

The Grip of the Mechanical

This fascination isn't just about admiring clever gadgets. Sometimes, an overemphasis on the technical can stem from, and lead to, a deep emotional attachment to the mechanical, the inanimate, the things we make. It can evolve into an addiction to the non-living. In its extreme form, this pull towards the inanimate mirrors a fascination with stagnation and decay. The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm insightfully identified this orientation as 'necrophilia' – not referring to a literal desire, but describing a deep-seated psychological leaning towards all that is dead, mechanical, unfeeling, and rigidly controlled, standing in stark contrast to 'biophilia', the love of life and growth.

This mindset often prefers 'law and order' over the dynamic nature of a living structure. It favors bureaucratic methods over spontaneous interaction, mechanical devices over living beings, repetition over originality, and meticulousness over fertility. There's a palpable desire to control life, perhaps born from a deep-seated fear of its beautiful, untamed arbitrariness. Faced with the unpredictable pulse of existence, the impulse can be to stifle it rather than engage with it, to withdraw rather than merge with the vibrant world around us. This fear can even lead to a dangerous flirting with destruction, a lack of rootedness in life manifesting as a hollow sort of courage found only in taking ultimate risks.

The Human-Machine Mirage

One striking symptom of this drift towards the mechanical is the growing fascination, both in science and popular culture, with creating computers that can perfectly mimic human beings – thinking, feeling, the whole package. Figures like Marvin Minsky, a respected authority in the field, have suggested there's no fundamental reason a machine couldn't replicate human capabilities.

But perhaps the more pressing question isn't if we can build such a machine, but why this idea holds such appeal right now. At a time when nurturing our own rationality, harmony, and peacefulness seems paramount, could this focus on artificial humans be a way to sidestep the difficult work of understanding and improving ourselves? Is it an escape from the richness and challenges of lived human experience into something more manageable, more cerebral, more... inanimate?

Ironically, as we dream of human-like machines, we observe more people behaving in machine-like ways. If we all become like robots, the problem of creating robots like us might just fade away, becoming irrelevant. The very idea of a human-like computer highlights a choice we constantly face: using machines to enhance our humanity or allowing them to become a refuge from it. A computer can serve life in countless ways, but the notion that it could replace life reflects a modern pathology.

The Appeal of Simplification

Alongside the pull of the purely mechanical, there's a parallel trend: simplifying ourselves by emphasizing our animal nature and instinctive roots. Thinkers like Konrad Lorenz (regarding aggression) or Desmond Morris ("The Naked Ape") gained popularity by highlighting our animal heritage. While acknowledging our biological drives is important – Freud's work on the libido explored this, though his truly fundamental discovery was the power of unconscious processes – these popular takes often feel less profound when considering the whole human.

Compared to the complexities Freud uncovered, focusing solely on instincts can seem like a way to downplay the uniquely human problems that trouble us. By suggesting we're merely determined by instincts, these views can offer a tempting escape from wrestling with the deeper questions of human existence and responsibility. It feels like an attempt to reduce the human equation, much like the dream of the perfect machine. It seems many might secretly dream of combining the raw emotions of an ape with the cold logic of a computer.

The Dangerous Union

If such a dream of an ape-computer hybrid could be realized, perhaps issues of freedom and responsibility would simply disappear. Feelings dictated by instinct, thoughts by algorithms. But this is an illusion. Such a being would cease to be human.

Decades ago, the writer Lewis Mumford expressed a similar concern, envisioning a chilling partnership between the 'automaton' – the detached, machine-like thinker – and the raw, primal 'Id' rising from our unconscious depths. He warned that one force, torn from the whole person, could be more unbridled than any wild animal, while the other, cut off from human feeling and purpose, could be so narrowly focused and insensitive that it lacks the wisdom to even stop its own potentially destructive actions, pushing towards ruin without understanding.

We stand witness to this potential union, a modern tragedy unfolding where the mechanical and the primal threaten to overshadow the integrated, conscious, and feeling human being. The choice remains whether we actively foster reverence for life or succumb to the allure of the lifeless.

References:

• Fromm, Erich. The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil. (1964).
  This work explores the concepts of "biophilia" (the love of life and living systems) and "necrophilia" (the psychological attraction to death, decay, control, and the purely mechanical). Fromm argues these are fundamental orientations influencing individual and social behavior, directly relevant to the article's central theme of choosing between reverence for life and attachment to the inanimate. See particularly Chapter 3, "Love of Death and Love of Life".
• Fromm, Erich. The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology. (1968).
  Fromm analyzes the alienation and passivity prevalent in modern technological society. He critiques the danger of humans becoming subservient to or transformed by their own creations, advocating for technology to be used in ways that enhance human well-being and aliveness rather than leading to dehumanization. This aligns with the article's discussion of computers and the risk of escaping into the mechanical. Consider Part I, "Where Are We Now and Where Are We Headed?".