On the Internet (Thinking in Action) by Hubert L. Dreyfus

by Hubert L. Dreyfus

Excellent Book

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Technology, Computers, Artificial Intelligence, Internet

Paperback Bunko

First published May 20, 2001

About the author

Hubert Lederer Dreyfus was professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where his interests include phenomenology, existentialism, the philosophy of psychology and literature, and the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence.

Reviews

[tout · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is out of date already (as often books about new technological currents are) especially because it doesn't mention social networking, which now has come to dominate much of what we think of being online. The book is however still very insightful and contemporary because it focuses on themes that are fundamental to the ontology of the internet and our relationship to it. I was intrigued especially by the idea of reading his analysis on the internet because he's a well known Heidegger scholar, who has also written books critical of artificial intelligence. Much of what I found useful in this book can be summarized with the idea that the internet produces a disembodied experience by a number of means by preferencing and organizing knowledge/information in a way that does not spring directly from the experience of being a body in the world, but by proliferating an endless sea of information to be processed that increasingly is a network of contextless information. In this way bodies and the subjectivities that are often attached to them become abstracted from the world and the way we increasingly relate is a physical manifestation of this disjointed non-place of the internet. The internet increasingly becomes a device for making the space between the human species and the computer a space of indistinction. And since a computer and its ontology can never be human or approach an intelligence that is comparable because it lacks what is fundamental for Being, being a being in the world. We hope also that a human being can never completely leave behind being a being in the world. This is merely an obscuring, attempting to make both what they can't be.

[Dhandayutha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primary criticism Dreyfus rise against Internet is about commitment.
Dreyfus raises four arguments.

1. Library vs Hyperlink
2. Distance Learning vs Real learning
3. Virtual presence as a Second life
4. Committed Individual vs Anonymous spectator. To sum it up can I say consumption vs commitment (Not as appropriate though)

Dreyfus splits information to two categories hierarchical useful information (Library model) versus the accessible information (Hyperlink model).

1. In a library the information we search are more in terms of usefulness to us where information about lion certainly differs from information about a tiger because the search in library is made in terms of its usefulness to us. In internet the information search made in terms of it accessible where the tiger is linked with lion because of it hyperlink and page rank. We consume it without a commitment because of it accessible. Dreyfus brings Kierkegaard argument of Press vs Christianity. Though I am not sure I assume why he use this example is when everything becomes news it hardly emote us for a real commitment where everybody who reads the news becomes anonymous spectator as though it happen to someone else.

2. Dreyfus analyzes the merits of distance learning model and his experience of using the model. MOOC are still an evolving model he welcomes the possibilities of it he is worried about the absence of visually interact with them or to say their real presence.

3. Virtual presence has become a second life. Dreyfus questions the necessity of leading a second life as anonymous spectator where nothing challenges anymore. We don’t have to risk anymore to remain as anonymous spectator to remain as nobody.

Though the book is outdated, the book can be considered as an argument against the information consumption rather against the whole of internet.

[Amir Mojiry · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب خوبی بود. کمی بعضی جاهایش سنگین و دور از ذهن بود اما در کل به خوبی فلسفه ی اینترنت رو بیان کرده بود

[Wendelle]

this book is not a Meditation on the Internet, rather it is a Collection of Four Criticisms on the Internet, most of which are biased and some empirically unsupported. First criticism is the oft-repeated adage that data on the internet are not arranged hierarchically like library catalogues and are not managed by knowledgeable experts, leading to information searches that are like 'finding a needle in a needle stack'. I feel the author fails to balance this chapter with information on the benefits of such an anarchical arrangement, or why the internet historically developed as such.

Second criticism is on the true effectiveness of distance learning, or online learning, which the author disparages repeatedly as 'correspondence courses'. He supports his criticism with a strange, seemingly self-concocted model of learning through stages from beginner to expert, distinguishing each with an accompanying rubric of accomplishments. The model is common-sensical enough, but not backed by any study or empirical data. His main argument is that universities provide mastery in learning that online classes can't provide, because a)they provide physical apprenticeships necessary for true learning and b)participation in actual classes and lectures require courage and risk-taking (basically, this man says, the risk of raising your hand, being wrong and laughed off) that then leads to an emotional involvement with the material. These two arguments are easy to debunk and even the author provides the way, acknowledging the plausible role of simulations in online learning as an alternative for apprenticeships. He then dismisses them as insufficient and proceeds with his pet points. As I've said these couple of pet points are not backed by empirical data, which one can easily harvest from the rising practices of online learning. For a), the author's pet example, mastery of chess, suffices. Most chess masters today learn their craft through thousands of computer chess programs, rapid-fire simulations, and online chess books which profit them the additional benefit of interactive learning that ordinary books cannot provide. For b), I don't see that people are less emotionally invested to online learning than physically located learning. I'm sure there are a lot of online learners who are more invested than bored college kids who do sit through lectures and volunteer fearless opinions during tutorial without really grappling with the material.

And so on. Though the criticisms the author raises in this book are thought-provoking and he seasons his chapters with a deep knowledge of what Plato or Nietzsche said about this or that, you'd think these authors would be a bit tougher on themselves and the standards of thought they'd bring before submitting to publication.

[امیر لطیفی]

معرفی شیرازه:
https://soundcloud.com/bbcpersian/thk...

[Emre]

Dreyfus'un düşünceleri bahsettiği her konuda ufuk açıcı fakat bu fikirlere ulaşmayı zorlaştırmak için hem çevirmen hem de editör elinden geldiği kadar uğraşmış sanırım. Çünkü bir çok cümle yanlış yazılmış veya yanlış çevrilmiş. Sık sık metnin orijinaline bakmak zorunda kaldım. Bir örnek vereyim:

Orijinal:

"For the time being, if we want to live life at its best, we will have to embrace our embodied involvement in the risky, moody, real world."

Çeviri:

"İçinde bulunduğumuz halde, hayatımızı en iyi şekilde yaşamak istemiyorsak tehlike içeren, ruh halleri değişken, gerçek dünyaya bedensel katılımı kucaklamamız gerekecektir." (Sayfa 133)

Cümlenin orijinalinde "yaşamak istiyorsak" denmesine rağmen çevirmen "yaşamak istemiyorsak" diye çevirmiş.

Çeviri bittikten sonra kimse kontrol etmemiş metni sanırım. Bu tarz yanlışlar hiç İngilizce bilmeyen okurun metni yanlış anlamasına yol açacaktır. Kitabı okumak istiyorsanız ya orijinal dilinden ya da çevirisi düzeltilirse bir gün o zaman okumanızı öneririm.

[Mahdi · Rating 2 out of 5]

مطالب درست و جالبی رو با زبان سخت و اذیت کننده روایت کرده. برای اهالی نت و منتقدانش خواندنیست

[Kevin Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

If technology followers have heard of philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, it's probably for his 1978 critique of symbolic artificial intelligence, What Computers Can't Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence, and the 1992 sequel, What Computers Still Can't Do. Though initially dismissed strongly by some in the AI community, Dreyfus's work eventually was seen to have a positive effect on AI research and the discourse surrounding it, and in fact directly influenced the directions some computer scientists subsequently followed in their research. [1][return][return]On The Internet, though published five years ago, touches on several topics actively debated in 2006. Dreyfus addresses claims made for the net in four areas: the hyperlinking of knowledge, distance learning, telepresence, and collective action in virtual communities.[return][return]In "The Hype about Hyperlinks", Dreyfus refutes the sort of arguments that say that we add value to information simply by linking it together electronically. Dreyfus points out that we're still a long way from accurate, relevant information retrieval on the net. Semantic information gets lost in an ideal "hyper-connected library" compared to the traditional kind. When I first read this chapter, I thought it sounded a bit dated for 2006, given the current Google worship, and the "semantic web" and all that. But we're easily fooled into thinking Google works well just because it returns some relevant results. You can't have confidence that you're getting any kind of inclusive coverage, the way you might if you went to a reference librarian and asked for all the important information on a given topic. I also thought when I read this that nobody still used that kind of rhetoric about the power of linking information together, but then I read about Kevin Kelly's utopia of hyperlinked snippets in his recent New York Times Magazine article.[return][return]In "How Far is Distance Learning from Education," Dreyfus considers the promise of distance learning over the net as a substitute for traditional classroom teaching. Dreyfus writes that learning consists of seven stages: novice, advanced beginner, competence, proficiency, expertise, mastery, and practical wisdom. Distance learning, where the student has no personal contact with the teacher, can at best produce competence. Beyond that, human involvement is necessary for the encouragement and apprenticeship required for proficiency, expertise, or mastery. Later in the book, Dreyfus describes some of his own experiences with recorded audio or video of lectures as a substitute for class attendance. He found that with most students, audio lectures worked perfectly well, but only after the student attended the first few lectures to get the necessary personal context. Dreyfus favors using the tools of the net to supplement teaching, but doesn't feel they'll ever replace classroom teaching because personal presence is necessary.[return][return]This leads to the question: what if virtual reality telepresence became so effective that it could be just like being there in person? Dreyfus responds to this in the next chapter, "Disembodied Telepresence and the Remoteness of the Real." In short, Dreyfus doesn't believe this will ever happen. Real "embodiment" and presence are much deeper and subtler than we realize. For his arguments, Dreyfus borrows from E.M. Forster's classic story, "The Machine Stops," and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's theories of embodied perception.[return][return]In the final chapter, "Nihilism on the Information Highway: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age," Dreyfus considers "virtual communities" as championed by Howard Rheingold and others, who have argued that the net is fostering new and better social networking and community activism. Certainly it's true that on-line organizing can work, but Dreyfus's criticism is that online communities threaten to replace real-life communities, and that would be unfortunate, as in-person communication is surely superior. As with education, Dreyfus feels that personal embodiment is vital to making groups work.[return][return]It would be a mistake to see Dreyfus's book as being against the internet -- he's clearly quite happy to recognize and use it where it helps. What he's done here is introduce new, philosophical ways to think more deeply about what it truly does and does not offer.[return][return][1] Val Dusek, Philosophy of Technology, Blackwell, 2006. p. 77.[return][return](Reviewed at Question Technology: http://www.questiontechnology.org/blo...)

[Arjun Ravichandran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of the excellent 'Thinking in Action' series that brings together leading thinkers to bear their attention down on the complex issues of the day, this slim treatise on the internet is written by a leading Heidegger scholar ; thus, his viewpoint on the internet takes the power of its critique from Heidegger's analysis and concern with Being, and the investigation is thus a phenomenological analysis of how the internet molds, shapes and affects the human experience. This Heideggerian thrust is maintained, though filtered through Merleau-Ponty's emphasis on the primacy of the human body, as well as Kierkegaard's devastating indictment of public life (of which, the author argues, the internet is simply a much much more potent and streamlined version) as a the biggest barrier to individuals living a life of faith and commitment. The author comes to the conclusion that the internet is not merely a new technology, but an altogether different type of technology that has become a paradigm and exemplar for a qualitatively different understanding of the human condition in the 21st century ; one that seeks to make everything rational, efficient, public, and within one's immediate reach. The book is basically an exploration of how the internet both propagates and recreates this public and deprimordialized understanding of the human condition, through an exploration of the internet's impact on fields such as education, community, and one's ability to commit to an authentic and meaningful life. It would help to consider this book along with Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows' which also looks at the internet ; whereas the latter is focused more on the scientific and behavioral aspects of the problem, here the author is offering a philosophical (more particularly, an existential) analysis of a quietly urgent problem.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was recommended to me by Dennis Packard, a philosophy professor here at BYU. Having been like Rip Van Winkle during my three years in Russia, the book offered some well-written thoughts about many aspects of the internet. It gave me a foundation as I began the trip into social media. I'm almost sure that Elder David Bednar must have read this before he gave his talk "Things As They Really Are." See

http://speeches.byu.edu/download.php/...

for an audio version of it. It was published last year in the Ensign. See:

http://lds.org/liahona/2010/06/things...

In the book, I was especially fascinated by the talk of disembodied telepresence, the failure of artificial intelligence (and of distance learning), and a review of the Second Life site, where you can live the life of an Avatar in telepresence. It was fun to get back into the computer realm again but anchor it with the importance of not getting too involved in it. (For example, the book cites a Carnegie-Mellon study that shows the more one spends on computer social media, the more depressed one is.

How does this relate to our modern communication and marketing? How can we use this remarkable technology but still keep our humanity? I recommend the book for those interested in such a discussion. It is a quick read and pretty packed. (Make sure you get the second edition.)

[Julie Moronuki · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I would like to write a more thorough review at some point but for the moment I'd like to at least note that for a book about technology that was published nearly 20 years ago it seems much less dated than I'd expected it to. It doesn't anticipate certain developments in gaming, especially, that I think it would be interesting to apply Dreyfus's analysis to. But another thing I found impressive about it is I read chapter 4 aloud to my partner (no background in philosophy) and two children (ages 15 and 11) and then we had an interesting and productive discussion about it; that's a rare thing in a philosophy book, that its points are so clearly made and digestible even in this standalone way.

[Garrett Spitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

a philosophical analysis of the internet, distance education and virtual realms like second life.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insights. Don't agree with some of the implications. Applying Heidegger to the current internet is interesting. I'm less impressed with Social Life.

[Ulas Tuerkmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a big fan of Dreyfus' classic book on AI, "What computers can't do". In that book, he took on the overly-optimist technologists of the early wave of AI, and discussed what made the ordinary human intelligence so extraordinary and resistant to formulization. A lot of time has passed since then, and the focus of technological thinking moved to the Internet. Dreyfus approaches the issues surrounding Internet from the same phenomenological perspective as "What computers can't do". The book opens with a very interesting example of a philosophical analysis getting proven wrong by the real world, and it's to Dreyfus' credit that he admits being wrong on the topic of search without giving any excuses. In an earlier version of the book,he argued that searching the web for content relevant to a given query is impossible, because search software would need to understand the content it indexed. The trick used by Google --mining the interconnectivity of HTML texts and the massive amount of textual information-- circumvented this difficult problem.

Dreyfus then goes on to criticise promises to replicate either parts (online learning) or all of the real world (second life) on the net. His criticism of online learning derives from his and Stuart Dreyfus' theory of human expertise, expanded in detail in this book,which is not really necessary considering it's a book on the internet. The main gist of it is that becoming an expert involves working with other experts in a shared situation. The criticism fails to address the fact that online learning is usually limited to giving people a "head start", without any promise of turning them into experts. Online learning sites and startups always stress how important forming a real community is, and encourage their users to engage with others to meet and create local communities. These communities are expected to take the students to the next level, not further disembodied online presence.

Dreyfus then goes on to attack two things web culture has taken on as its defining attributes, anonymity and multiplicity, by applying Kierkegaard's analysis of different spheres of life. I find the fit between these spheres and the possibilities offered by the internet a bit too uncanny, and this book is worth reading even only to get a short introduction to this topic. According to Kierkegaard, people move through different spheres of life. The first is the aesthetic sphere, in which people "make the enjoyment of all possibilities the centre of their lives". At this level, the human being tries to take in everything that is interesting, treating it all as of the same significance. This is, in the end, a state of despair, because one is constantly trying to be entertained, and is unable to create a unified self. A person who realises this and is willing to change himself moves on to the ethical sphere, where one seeks out information based on a stable identity, filtering the possibilities and seeking out involved action. Although one would think that this is a dignified way of living, Kierkegaard argues this also ends in despair, because either one is stuck with whatever is imposed on her (she is of this nationality and that occupation), or the pure power of her freedom undermines her commitment. This pure power creates a situation similar to the aesthetic sphere, levelling all differences. The highest sphere, the Christian/religious sphere of existence, can be reached only by unconditional commitment, possible if we feel "gripping passion" about something like a political movement or another human being.

All in all, "On the Internet" is a small but powerful book that does not always make the right generalizations about the net, but contains some very powerful ideas and criticisms that individuals and the net community in general should take seriously.

[Alan Rodriguez Tiburcio · Rating 3 out of 5]

An expression of reactionary existentialism, riddled with the limitations of (classical?) humanism. Dreyfus presents the hesitancy of a person who sees the event horizon and hopes to close their eyes while holding tight, praying for the sky to pass.

Has anyone (anywhere) extended Deleuze into Dreyfus? Because I can’t help but see that where Dreyfus postulates from a so very authenticity-driven framework of 19th/20th century existentialism — namely, Kierkegaard seems relevant to him — on the inverse Deleuze reads the same events from what we may call a *post*existentialist framework (similar to what H.G. Moeller called the “existentialism of the 21st century”). A potential mesh exists there. Dreyfus’s descriptive analysis seems pertinent, even correct; the underlying normative implications lack.

(Maybe I’m just biased for not liking Kierkegaard or the anti-virtual humanist position.)

Don’t fear the virtual, don’t take it personally. Someday the future washes over us like waves do stones; and, like real water erodes and changes the stones it washes so, too, must the future erode and change us.

[Medhat ullah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deleuzian hierarchical structures or nexus & dreyfus interrogates the ontological and epistemological implications of cyberspace, scrutinizing the reduction of embodied human experience into disembodied interactions mediated by digital interfaces. He posits that the internet’s detachment from the lifeworld undermines authentic engagement, replacing the tacit, situated knowledge of physical presence with abstracted, decontextualized data.By applying Heideggerian concepts of being-in-the-world and Merleau-Pontian embodiment, Dreyfus critiques the notion of the internet as an unqualified epistemic tool. He argues that it perpetuates a false ideal of limitless connectivity and information, risking alienation, shallow engagement, and the erosion of meaning derived from direct, embodied, and context-rich experiences.

[zero · Rating 4 out of 5]

a collection of insightful philosophical essays applied to what i and dreyfus believe to be a new subject of real philosophical significance - the internet. it is fascinating that though the book was released around twenty years ago how much the internet has evolved since then, and for my masters in philosophy i will be taking some of dreyfus’ idea on the internet and applying them to modern internet paradigms - notably, social media.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second edition of this book is good. Even though it was published in 2009, the arguments seem to predict contemporary issues pertaining to the Internet e.g. social media via continuation of the coffeehouse as the public sphere.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should have checked the publication date on this book before reading it. I hated computers than, and still hate them today. Just off-putting and unwieldy. Going off grid soon.

[Maud van Lier · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit outdated by now but overall an jnteresting read.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished this-- a great, easy to read yet insightful book about our use of the internet and the potential in the internet for aiding education. There is a very critical element here, but Dreyfus is not a Luddite. Even if you end up disagreeing with his arguments against the more optomistic statements about the internet's potential to better our lives, he at least gives the most thorough, intelligent, and informed critique of the internet that I know of. He writes from the perspective of philosophy, of course, but is very familiar with the world of computers as well, having a brother in the field and having been a major critic of the AI movement (which does not mean he opposes AI-- only that he is critical of research into AI and the promises made regarding AI).
Too tired to write a more thorough review now, but this is a great book, short, easy to read, and both profound and relevant.


Been meaning to finish getting through this for some time now, but I keep getting distracted by other books. Despite that, it looks pretty good. I've gotten hooked on Dreyfus by his articles on AI and phenomenology, which you can find online at his UC Berkeley web page. This particular book seems to be a very easy to understand yet intellectually respectable discussion of the epistemological and ontological issues involved in our use of the Internet. Don't worry, Dreyfus is not a reactionary Luddite intent on obliterating the internet! He does tend to emphasize the weaknesses in the problematic positions of the more extreme proponents of AI and the internet, primarily by emphasizing that we humans are what we are largely, or perhaps primarily because of our embodied existence (in opposition to those who think we should evolve into "brains in vats", or rather, disembodied intelligences), as well as by following in Heidegger's footsteps in pointing out the ways (sometimes harmful) in which technology affects our mode of "being-in-the-world"-- but it seems to me that he is interested in promoting a healthy way to live with technology, rather than doing away with technology.

[Chris Friend · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent text discussing the implications of the Internet across social, educational, and philosophical grounds. Dreyfus makes a strong argument for the importance of embodied knowledge—an argument I've not seen in many texts specifically about the implications of the 'net, and certainly in none I've read about education and the 'net. He takes a Kirkegaardion approach to his philosophical argument that the Web adds complexity to, rather than resolves, dilemmas about quality of life and social involvement.

Rather than taking a noncommittal, middle-ground approach to his conclusions, Dreyfus effective/y argues for balance by stating the concepts that must be balanced when we live life online. His overall argument is that, despite the allure of living without a physical self, we need to ensure that we preserve our embodied knowledge and awareness, as those are of fundamental importance to our experience as humans.

[Gustavo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the best college books that I have read in a long time. It really depicts our nihilistic persona that we indulge ourselves in; the present age of anticipation, the disembodiment of the self, and the impact of the virtual world on our perception of reality and how we interact in/with reality. It's tough to read on your own, but if you're a grade-A intellectual, a deeper insight awaits on the completion of the book.

[Leonard Houx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing on the internet, Hubert Dreyfus delivers lucid phenomenological insight combined with well-researched, concrete evidence. Certainly one of the best, soundest books I have read about the internet.

I especially appreciated his writing on distance learning and its limitations. That the higher levels of learning require the risks, meanings, and emotions that come with being physically present.

[Katrinka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although brief, the book provides a very thoughtful examination of how life online may or may not enhance human existence. The second edition came out, though, before Google (et al) introduced its personalized search algorithm(s?). Additionally, I would have appreciated some commentary on issues of privacy and of targeted advertising, but those topics may have taken Dreyfus away from his examination of embodiment versus virtual reality.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very good book about the dangers of the internet. I recommend reading the most up to date version, however. I read a slightly older version first. The author qualifies some of his stances in the later edition. I think you might say that he's a little more accepting of the internet in the most recent edition of the book.

[Oktagerard · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book gives me the negative impact of internet.
on the internet we lose our embodiment aspect and the unconditional commitment.
good book.
i read it many-many times because i write my small thesis in philosophy from this book.

[Justin Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally written in 1999 and updated ten years later, Dreyfus brings the his estimable gifts as a philosopher to bear on questions about the hype and hope of the Internet age. His analysis is incisive (if a bit pessimistic) and perhaps the greatest feature of this book is its accessibility.

[Chant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dated book about the philosophical implications about the information super highway, but Dreyfus does bring up some interesting points about the internet and the issues that occur around being anonymous online, distance learning, and hyperlinks over the library.

Solid book.

[Yusuf Topsakal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beğendim. Kitap teknolojinin yaygınlaşmasından ''görece'' çok uzun zaman öncesinde yazılmasına rağmen eğitime,bilgiye,insana ait temel tezlerinin büyük bir kısmı hala geçerli. Ek olarak interneti Niçe,Kikegard,Heidegger gibi filozofların görüşleri ile ele alması okurken ayrıca hoşuma gitti.