Information Technology and Human Communities

Problem

Over the past few decades, information technology (IT) significantly changed, and continues to change the lives of people all over the world. These changes continue to spread out wider and faster everywhere, directly and indirectly, affecting every human life.

And although the habit, the routine of total coverage and penetrating of IT into our lives somehow pushes the anxiety of waiting for the consequences of this "invasion", but unfortunately it does not add either clarity to its logic, nor the understanding of its further prospects or threats.

Meanwhile, the fact of the lightning-fast development of IT - even on a scale of just human life, not to mention its historical dimensions - so cardinal, as to the existence of human civilization, and it is still quite obvious that at present it is far from the final, it seems not at all superfluous to try to find a point of support to understand the logic and this fundamental process development direction.


Definition

The community is a stable material phenomenon, formed by its carriers and means, the length of which in space and time forms its shape and acts in front of its bearers as an environment of their existence. The form (body) of the community is its carriers, together with the means of communication between them, and its spirit is a collection of all rules of communication between carriers.

It is easy to see that this definition of community does not depend on the nature of its carriers and is suitable for, for example, cell communities that form multicellular organisms. After all, genetically identical cells, that is, carriers of the same set of rules of communication between themselves, encoded in genetic material, form such communities, in the form of multicellular organisms, which in turn can be the bearers of the rules of communication between already organisms, forming a community of the next level , in particular human communities.

Such a definition of the community makes it possible to see the question of the dependence of the potential of the development of consciousness of the community (consciousness as the ability of the community to be the bearer of rules of communication between communities) from the level of development of its spirit, that is, the level of development of the totality of all rules of communication between carriers of this community.

If the essence of the genetic material of genetically identical cells in the multicellular organism lies in the fact that it contains the spirit of the organism - the coded rules of communication between cells in any place in the body, the consequence of which is the possibility of human consciousness, that is, the ability of a person to be the carrier of the rules of human communication with other people, then the question arises of the same nature with respect to people in human communities.

These questions about human communities whose bearers, people who are capable of being subjects of human communication, are questions about what the codified spirit of the human community is - the core of the rules of communicating people among themselves in human communities, the identical copy of which is owned by each person in human communities . Where exactly is the person, one and the same for each of the carriers of human communication, the genotype of the human community, in which the rules for communicating with other people are?

To answer this question, let's distinguish off of the old ones and the new means of human communication the most significant - the primary code of rules of human communication can not be somewhere far from its most significant means.

Let's do it according to a simple quantitative criterion of significance of means of human communication: the more people use this or that means of communication, and the more often, the more common it is.

It is easy to see that the first common means of human communication, according to this criterion, was (and is) a living language, because it simultaneously performs for its carriers also the function of the constantly updated repository of rules of direct human communication, in the form of a reference book of concepts - mainly concepts , relating to the characteristics of man and human relationships.

It is easy to judge the importance of becoming a person of the first common means of human communication from the fact that before the emergence of a human language, it is not necessary to speak the language of a person of his own, qualitatively different from the animal.

The other two common means, the letter and the media (in conjunction with global communications), the emergence of which later has become the cause of the tremendous development of mankind every time, providing the language of additional opportunities, strengthening, so to speak, the interpersonal interface.

When the live language is local in space and time, then through the letter it acquires a length in time. Mass media expand the spatial boundaries of one-way live speaking and writing, and communications expand the space of the live language and writing.

Thus, the only thing that is in human societies is identical to every human being in them and which can be constantly an actual repository of rules of direct human communication in the form of a reference book of concepts - mainly concepts related to the characteristics of man and human relationships, that is, to be human An analogue of all cells in the body of the genetic material is human languages. And just as differences in the genetic material affect the differences in the structure of organisms, so the differences in languages ​​impact the structure of the communities, the spirit of which they are.

If we consider the scheme of human history proposed by Jaspers [3] (prehistory, history, and world history), then it can be noted that prehistory corresponds to the period of development of mankind from the emergence of language to the emergence of writing, history - from the emergence of a letter to the emergence of media and communications , and the world history began after the media and communications emergence.

This is not a very large number of three common means, it is already quite obvious, as today, the appearance of the new, fourth general means of human communication have information technology. Most, when not all information technology products, if not directly, indirectly, to the means of human communication, as well as the two previous generic tools, provide the language with qualitatively other additional capabilities.

According to the consistency of the scheme of human history proposed by Jaspers, with the emergence of new universal means of human communication, the emergence of the fourth common means of human communication, information technology, marks the beginning of a new stage in the development of mankind, the next after world history. We call him "being".

And since languages ​​influence the structure of the communities they cover, we note that the more clearly, the more they have the means, and IT today have the appearance of a much more powerful tool of languages ​​than the letter and the media, the conclusion about the rapid updating of the near-time features (as positive , and the negative ones) of human languages ​​in the communities covered by them, is quite obvious.

Information technologies already include advanced, and still improving, types of writing, the media and communications, for example, for the media of individuality, and writing and live speech, the properties of mass.

IT not only gives each person, in the context of all information available to mankind, the ability to access everywhere accessible means for people, institutions and organizations, whether there is a variety of simulators, games and things from the web or another interface (IoT), but also opportunities to create or influence the creation and operation of various associations, both virtual, for solving one or another one-time tasks, from outside the visible results like flash mobs, as well as real ones - groups, communities, societies, institutions, institutions and other human organizations in the new their or traditional forms, such as companies, fraternities, corporations, orders, leagues, associations, unions and other bodies of human communities.

But not so this headline of the list of features of IT indicates the originality of their assimilation of mankind, as this originality rather indicates the obvious futility of hopes that you can truly compile an exhaustive list of IT capabilities. When you try to make such a list every time, it surprises by its incompleteness, along with the feeling that the main thing in it is not named.

And this unnamed is the main thing: information technology is rapidly taking up, has already taken its rightful place in the fourth general means of human communication.


Consequences

Let's recall a well-known statement: "the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each separate individual, in reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations" (Marx). This is the definition of the essence of man, at the moment, it has not been heard if someone casts a slightest doubt on that.

And when it comes to changes in human nature, then - when not forgetting what exactly is the essence of man - another form of the question of human change is the question of changing human relations.

The replacement of the words "social relations" with the words "human relations" has the necessary look because, although Marx emphasized that "social and social relations" are "all relations in which people are with each other", but today the notion "Social relations" does not indicate directly, along with others, personal human relationships. After all, when we talk about social relations, then, as a rule, we mean the relations established between large groups of people. Without personal human relations like "man-man" an, is unlikely to be correct talking about all social relations, as about the essence of man.

Moreover, quite obvious that it is precisely personal human relations - the personal relations of man and man, that is, the bearers of all social relations, among themselves, and is the primary basis of all, without exception, social relations. With testimonies we have to meet each of us without exaggeration at every step.

And if we do not even try to abolish economic relations today, classifying all the rest of human relations as derivatives from economic, as "superstructure", which really took place during the period of forced development of economic relations (capitalism) - then the most interesting issue regarding human relations is the question of the real structure of human relations.

And when we consider all the relations in which people are with each other and the totality of which is the essence of man, then it seems that we are not very far from the truth, if we divide them, according to completely natural signs, into only three main classes - the generic , economic and spiritual human relations.

Not stopping at the obvious fact that the foundation of all relations can not but be genitive relations, that is, the relations in which people enter into the continuation of the human race and without which all the rest of the relationship - clearly why - lose all meaning, let us dwell on the question of , changes in which direction can be expected in human relations in the process of further development and total implementation of information technology.

For a more complete answer to this question, one must be aware of the fact that information technology (IT), among other things, contributes to the development of scientific knowledge and technical means much more powerful than the third generation of general means of human communication, that is, media and media the trick However, it is also clear that the significance of even significantly accelerated technological and technological evolution, as well as the value of technical means, in particular, of economic relations in general, for human relations itself, has already significantly decreased in comparison with their hypertrophied exaggerated value during the period of forced development of economic relations (capitalism ), which has already practically ended, after reaching such a level of development of economic relations, which is necessary - both for the fulfillment of all its tasks, without involving the fanaticism of its participants, and to and for further development.

The reduction of the difficulties of life, as a consequence of the development of science and technology in general and the means of communication and personal communication and the media in particular, quantitatively change the structure of human communication, reducing the number of obstacles that take away the forces and time of the people of human relationships. Even this, so to speak, the mechanical intensification of human communication already entails accelerating the perfection of its rules. The influence of this process of improving the human relations of information technologies, in addition to the mechanical intensification, is expressed qualitatively.

Even such, not very detailed considerations give grounds for defining the essence of human progress as the perfection of purely human relationships, that is, spiritual human relations, as well as for the conclusion that it is precisely this, the improvement of purely human relations, and was - at all times of man's existence is a real human progress, which explains why the gigantic significance for the development of mankind of such highest achievement of the human spirit as "For the whole Law is contained in one word: Love your neighbor as yourself!" (New Testament, GAL 5:14).

1983 - 2008 - 2015 Olexandr Franchuk ofranchuk@gmail.com


Literature

    • Taras Shevchenko, Kobzar
    • New Testament
    • Carl Jaspers, Origins of History and Its Purpose
    • K. Marx, Theses on Feuerbach
    • K. Marx, Moral Criticism and Critical Morality