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© 2013 by Selçuk Artut

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Data-Reality
Selçuk Artut
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction 9
Technological Perspectives 15
Beyond the Boundaries of Human Body 63
Techno-Realities 105
Data-Reality 135
Bibliography 139
Acknowledgements 7
I express my gratitude to Prof. Siegfried Zielinski, for his

valuable advice on developing this book. I am also grateful to
Prof. Wolfgang Schirmacher for his support in directing me
towards my studies at European Graduate School.
I am deeply indebted to my son Kaya for his full support in

motivating me for a better future.
Introduction 9
Human-technology relation is experiencing a period of profound

change. The root causes of this change belong to the moment
when humankind fitted to start walking upright that allows
hands to use as apparatuses to be a latent extension of the human
body. In a technologically saturated society, human-technology
relation plays an essential role in establishing rules of a
contemporary life with its demystified dimensions. Current
advances in widespread use of technology increasingly made the
subject a central feature of society and culture. Nevertheless,
when mentioned relations are to be analyzed looking only from a
perspective of how humans employ technology, there remains a
lack of understanding opposite side of our symmetrical relation
that is technology-human relations.
Besides the reciprocal relationship between humans and

technology that has always been inherent to our understanding
and overcoming our limitations of the external world, ethical and
10 Data-Reality
social impacts of human-technology (technology-human)

relation requires an investigation with further questions
concerning technology. In an era under intense influence of
technology, one cannot help asking in which aspects technology
introduces us the reality. Man controls and rebuilds the
technology-based world as much as possible; consequently, this
world continuously grows its peculiar assumptions and reality
conception by laying up bricks after bricks. Technological
motion essentially incorporates improvement behind its ever-
increasing tempo; nevertheless, it has become a phenomenon
which we feel obliged to adapt under new circumstances. While
our life, saturated by quadrilateral screens, insistently elaborates
and introduces information, our agendas, formed by addictive
intense data flow push the individuals into astonishment and
confusion, differentiating their perception of reality. Today, new
visual technological developments such as Augmented Reality
invite us into the fictionalized reality. Hereby study argues that
the reality aspect within man-technology relationship gained
new axes together with 21st century Information Revolution,
and claims the relativity of reality has now become an issue of
design and is objectified in form of data.
Chaos and order: A helix of dilemmas that exists within all the
fundamental reasons bringing the World into existence. Our
technological lives, quickly changing form and in continuous
adaptation, indicate the point an enormous collective progress
has reached. A technological life is facing us as an unavoidable
reality. Having a say in planning its own future, within the
results emerging with the decisions made over time, the human
civilization has created for itself a unique meta-world. Having
been created afterwards, this World witnesses the hosting of a
conflict where chaos and order are addorsed. Subject to
manipulation with all the materials she contains, the World that
we live in has transformed into an object metamorphosing on her
own. Starring in this metamorphosis lays the civilization
established by humanity.
Imprisoning all the other beings except humans behind cages,

searching the depths of the earth for fuels that it will burn and
destroy to obtain energy, besmearing the atmosphere
Introduction 11
continuously to move faster and as if all of these were not

enough, smashing the atom in order to be stronger than the other
to destroy the other, humanity, at the point where it stands now,
has to account for all the things that it has done. While
unrestrainedly capturing the new World order, the desires for
invasion and insatiable authority magnified by the Industrial
Revolution have caused a set of disasters inflicting permanent
damages. Today is the time, now, for people to push aside their
stray and raffish manners and find ways of living in peace with
the World, with responsibility.
Under the use of humanity, technology has nourished on the

existence of humanity and has established its character feeding
vastly on humanity. Due to its human-made aspect, technology
has a material-addicted nature. All the entities it embodies
contain corporeal ingredients. However, in essence, technology
does not belong to matter. Technology is the actor of a parallel
World living together with human beings. It is not an atomic
object with only its materiality extent. It is a phenomenon
continuously changing state and behavior. Technology is the
soul of materiality. Its incorporeal structure points to a situation
difficult to express through words. Although all of its reflections
belong to this World as materials, as a concept technology is not
a substance belonging to this World. Assumed to progress
intensively under the domination of people, it is actually an
activity that metamorphoses people.
Advancing without allowing any time for our questioning,

technology and the technological lives it proposes endeavor to
build an expansion beyond human intelligence and the
capabilities of the physical human body. Zooming in what is
called distant and obscuring the perception of many concepts,
technology has caused radical changes in people’s lives. In
continuous interaction with our bodies, technology has the
characteristic of being an extension of our bodies by taking part
inside or outside of our bodies. With genetic cloning enabling
the transformation of the human into a commodity, the concept
of identity has raised new discussions. In order to succeed in
surviving during the information storms in a complicated World
order, the human intelligence is developing methods to increase
12 Data-Reality
its capacity by receiving external support. Facing the eyes we

use to view the World each day, the augmented realities
appearing later through technological devices result in new
constructions in our minds towards a serious distinctness that the
reality belonging to this World metamorphoses into.
The structure of chaos and order changes the rhythm of life of

the society and by influencing the narrative structure of arts
establishing the colors of life, provokes the development of new
artistic languages with new definitions emerging. Its
giganticness – before its discovery as a whole – bearing
admiration and fear, the terrestrial globe we call Earth has now a
rapidly diminishing scale with a metric structure where people
could rise in the skies and look from high and could transport
with high speeds on her. With information networks surrounding
her all over, the diminishing World has topography independent
of physical locations and where people living on her could
communicate with each other easily. The masses transform into
individuals at the end points of the convolutions within the
structure defined by the networks; but when the general structure
of these networks is considered, individuals could come together
at common points and result in situations where collective
behaviors emerge. Using the computer – the primary connection
point – as a medium, people could easily access other masses on
the other side of the network and lead to the emergence of
platforms where co-production and co-creation theories could
really be practiced.
The relations referred to concerning the human-technology

relationship mentioned above could only – structure-wise –
propose a partial foundation considering a full reflection of the
matter. It seems extremely difficult to analyze thoroughly the
rooting structure in human-technology relationship with the
continuously changing perception of technology that is unique
for all and its categorization-proof nature.
The ideas included within the book have been investigated under
three main headings. In the first section, the theories and
frameworks in literature regarding the definition of technology
and the comprehension of its essence are investigated. In the
Introduction 13
second section, technologies corporealized within the context of

human body and technology relationship, technological artificial
organs, technological interventions taking part in people’s
bodies, reproduction – by cloning – of people and the post
human discussions emerging in the light of all of these
developments are entreated. In the third section, the differences
in human behaviors induced by technology are discussed.
This work has a view in search of analyzing the situation for the
comprehension of the mutual interactions of technology, having
a complicated character with its different dimensions, and
human nature. Inviting the world into order, rationality, within a
structure where disorder is put into order as far as possible
through the popularization of casual complicities, will keep on
offering people unprecedented new life styles.
15
Technological Perspectives
Technology Debate
Legitimation of knowledge has undergone substantial changes in

the past centuries. With the invention of printing machines in
1400’s A.C. and by means of the copying and reproduction
processes thereof, authority-dependent knowledge access has
eluded its authoritarian structure and central organization and it
has adopted a more widespread organization with respect to the
past, transforming the production of knowledge into the
hegemony of smaller resources. Using the printed media, the
knowledge-able sector has got the opportunity to reach larger
masses. Yet, although estranged from the central system and the
authorities, in time, different methods and formats on the
authenticity and accuracy of knowledge were developed.
Considering this topic, scientific papers emerge as a current
example. Including this text you are reading, no scientific work
being written today could be written without referring to or
showing references within certain standards. The civilization,
establishing methods and creating standards of her own,
advances and develops further, revealing certain patterns for the
sake of reinforcing our accumulation of knowledge established
on her foundations.
By means of the proliferating structure of the age of information

that we can never catch up with, the sources of information have
estranged even further from the central authority and they have
been rendered even more independent. Of course, it becomes
more difficult to maintain the accuracy and reliability of
information as it diverges away from the central authority. Thus,
it should also not be forgotten that, when biased, information
could inhabit serious dangers.
Today, the habit of digging information up from encyclopedias

is about to become non-existent. Almost a big part of our lives is
spent in front of the computer and mostly by surfing the Internet.
The Internet is an extremely rich media most easily accessible
16 Data-Reality
and providing us with the most common information

possibilities while doing research. Then, does our continuous
retrieval of information from the Internet shape our organic
relationship with information?. Yet, the reason we have arrived
at this point in our current discussion is to establish the
framework for describing a very fundamental concept, the
concept of Technology. “Technology” is perhaps one of the
most frequently employed concepts of the 21st century.
Technology Defined
As words are used frequently and as they proliferate, they are

associated with several meanings. The word “technology” is a
good example for this differentiation. At this point, in our
modern-day habits concerning knowledge, a behavior
indoctrinated to us by the human-technology relationship comes
into debate: Copy and paste. A technique we could achieve with
primitive methods before the widespread use of computers.
Centuries ago, in order to copy written text, humanity made
moulds out of wood, metal and by means of printing machines
made the reproduction operations easier. The process of pouring
molten metal into carved moulds to produce iron objects is a
technique still employed today. Much advancement on copying
and reproduction has been achieved in history and the various
methods found have caused behavioral changes extending even
to people’s use of objects.
Ctrl (Command)+C and Ctrl (Command)+V. What sort of

behavioral differences could such a simple habit have caused
within us? While the fragments of text, that we copy and paste,
drag from here to there within textual structures transform into
granular units getting structural with various combinations, the
contents of meaning lose their contextual characteristics due to
the predominant existence of techniques like copy and paste. As
in the example of automatically generated congratulatory e-mail
messages, the meaningful thought extent within text could no
longer beheld. Style has got ahead of meaning. This trend
towards form popularizes an understanding where Platonic ideas
are detained and where phenomena are expressed through

Platonic forms. Meta-realistic concepts materializing and
coming into existence through words transform, through form,
into material with their mechanized variables and fluidities.
When we view from a wider frame, it could even be stated that

nowadays words do merely carry their lexical meanings indeed.
Words frequently find meaning depending on how they are used.
While the reproduction and copying concepts infuse us with
solid exemplification, we would rather enrich our discussions
with more materialistic and solid questionings than collating
them with abstract Platonic concepts. In this sense,
encyclopedias and dictionaries emerge as a universe of the ideal
objects of Plato.
Since online media are capable of frequent updates, the

encyclopedias, which are products of printed media, become
disadvantageous compared to their online counterparts when it
comes to correspond actual concepts. The language is in a
structure of constant change with words gained or lost every
day. Ever-developing technology is a notable driving force for
introduction of new words in the language. Many of today’s
widespread technological words are named after their inventors.
In this respect, the newcomers in a language sometimes spring
from a single source, like derivation from the name of inventors,
or such new words are created by a certain section in society
before becoming widespread.
Today, one of the most popular publishing on the new word

structures generated by certain sections in society is Wikipedia.
The word “Wikipedia” is derived from encyclopedia. It is a
collective intelligence form with ten thousands of authors. It is
possible to come across numerous examples on Wikipedia
regarding the words which are added to social vocabulary
through technological use. For example, the common terms in
hacker environment, such as Rootkit, Social Engineering, Trojan
horses, Phishing are yet to be seen in printed encyclopedias. The
language is able to express itself by the words in its own closed
system. This closed system also leads to entrapping the language
in its own patterns. The language, however, is merely another
18 Data-Reality
method of communication, with its synthetic structure developed

subsequently. Images were in place long before writing when it
comes to communication and record of information. During the
evolution of communication methods, the written, coded
information separated from image and became independent.
Nevertheless, today, we observe a return to imaginary
expression. Nowadays, even while searching on the Internet; it
has become a frequently preferred method to get to the results
through visual materials. Therefore, it could well be said that a
return from written text, establishing the backbone of
communications, to visual symbols has been accomplished.
Following the efforts to concretize the meaning of words either
visually or imaginarily appears a question of hegemony on
whether they should have an ultimate reciprocity. The words
become meaningful through more commonly used meanings or
their meaning fixed by authorities.
Although, due to its common use, it frequently appears before us

nowadays, when we look at the historical past of the word
“Technology”, it emerges as a very new concept. Its adoption as
a concept into our daily lives extends back to the Industrial
Revolution. Curiously enough, according to the claims of
Andrew Murpie and John Potts in their book titled “Culture and
Technology”, the use of the word Technology starts in the
second half of the 19th century and it is observed that many
writers from the period before including Karl Marx have never
used the term in their writings. Stephen J. Kline says as follows
on technology;
But what is "technology"? If we look with even a

little care, we find this same word is being used to
represent things, actions, processes, methods and
systems. "Technology" is also used symbolically
as an epithet, for important working procedures,
and to represent progress.1
Advance and constant progress are among most notable

components of technology. The improvement, which renders the
character of technology truly structural and which constitutes its
basic motive, signifies constant change. The progress triggers
the desire to achieve the better, thus it witnesses the competition
between relative concepts. To advance means, according to
some, to go up a hill with an invisible summit. Mankind, unable
to see beyond the hill, runs as he cannot stop his curiosity, and
perceives such effort towards the unknown as progress.
Nonetheless, the outcomes lead to doubts on whether such
development is truly positive or not. Does technological
progress accelerate the emergence of an instinct already within
human nature? Evidently, technology, by nature, includes the
concept of speed. All facts appearing around technology are
more or less under influence of such speed. While the most
obvious and primitive method of changing physical location is
walking and running, man tamed the animals in order to attain
their quicker movement abilities. In desire of a speed far beyond
that of animals, man managed to produce motor vehicles, a
technological invention much faster than the horse. Automobiles
are indeed a substitution of horse with machines; accordingly,
the term horsepower still survives for determining the power of
our cars. The main purpose of transport remains essentially the
same; and it has been the whip of a constant progress idea. The
first automobiles were merely as fast as a frog; but the
technological developments brought them to our day, when they
are almost capable of rivaling with speed of sound.
According to theory of numbers, a basic mathematical theory,

the numbers are in certain relations with one another. The
cardinal numbers, existing on a single axis, generate the
definitions of greatness and littleness in an order relationship.
1 C. Scharff, Robert & Duse, Val (Ed.)(2003), Philosophy of

Technology – The Technological Condition An Anthology
Blackwell Publishing, p. 210-211
20 Data-Reality
This structure makes us adopt the norm of order relation in daily

life. Every countable thing is evaluated in a relationship of
greatness and littleness based on comparison in numerical axis.
For example, countries are compared in terms of their surface
area, whereas the comparison between their richness is possible
through capital value of their resources. The rationalized
resources pave way for an inevitable competition as they are
considered in comparative criteria. Consequently, the claim of
hegemony by humans on global resources, and the
contradictions due to such comparison criteria cause to
calamitous outcomes all around the world. Today, man keeps
fighting each other for a bigger share of limited resources, and
the constant motive of progress survives albeit the ambiguity on
which way we take. The irresponsible attitudes lead to serious,
irreparable damages.
Do we have to progress? When will mankind be content with his

achieved point? What are the structural criteria of progress? One
of the most significant factors to characterize progress is the
restrictions and limits. Man prefers faster transport means due to
restrictions about time. Compared to sea voyage for months,
airplanes offer a much faster alternative; therefore, they are
selected regardless of a greater security gap. Human life is
limited and finite. The life is limited. Nonetheless, mankind can
overlook the presence and rights of others so as to satisfy his
desires regarding temporal struggle. Man keeps polluting the
nature rather unconsciously by transport means, where his
irresponsibility is crystal clear. Natural balance of the world is
rapidly degraded because of the emission of carbon fuels, used
by vehicles, to atmosphere. Is technology the true blameworthy
figure for upsetting natural balance on earth? Or does human
conception differ from that of technology; and consequently, do
men render the responsibility of his errors to a point too far to
realize to assume, using the technology? Upon a look on
knowledge, one of the essential constituents of human
civilization, we observe a constant progress in knowledge that
keeps increasing even faster.
In order to exemplify Kline's statement, one can apparently find

relevant reflections of the word "Technology". If we are talking
about the Information Technology, we are reaching to an

enormous list of components within the field such as computers,
databases, programming languages, telecommunication systems
etc. If we are addressing the process of manufacturing an
artifact, we may include automobile technology as an example
that would embody a multitude of complex steps and procedures
along the manufacturing operations
If we look at the historical development and the etymological

structure of the word “Technology”, in many sources we see that
its origin is based on the Ancient Greek Civilization. When we
study the structural analysis of the word, we could say that it has
been derived from a combination of the words tekhne and logos.
Tekhne means – in Ancient Greek – skill in arts or craft. Logos
means system or study. In his book titled Nicomachean Ethics,
exemplifying from architecture, Aristotle defines art as follows:
Now since architecture is an art and is essentially

a reasoned state of capacity to make, and there is
neither any art that is not such a state nor is any
such state that is not an art, art identical with a
state of capacity to make, involving a true course
of reasoning. All art is concerned with coming
into being, i.e. with contriving and considering
how something may come into being which is
capable of either being or not being, and whose
origin is in the maker and not in the thing made;
for art is concerned neither with things that are, or
come into being, by necessity, nor with things that
do so in accordance with nature (since these have
their origin in themselves). 2
According to the paragraph above, the art is essentially a

production. As for architecture, Aristotle claims that its
2 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Retrieved Apr 12th, 2012

from http://nicomacheanethics.net/.
22 Data-Reality
production grounds on a logical basis. Art is, in the most general

terms, to bring something into existence. In the course of time,
the content of art changes via this wide definition and the latter
evolves in dynamism. Is the object of art created of nothing? The
object of art, whose material content is already in world
reserves, attains its essence only through a production process
between the artist and itself. Therefore, the artist does not create
the artwork from nothing in material terms, but realizes its
essence.
Having been impressed deeply by the Ancient Greek

Philosophy, one of the most significant philosophers of our day,
Martin Heidegger states as follows while carrying out the
structural analysis of the word in his well-known article titled
‘Question Concerning Technology’;;
The word stems from the Greek. Technikon means

that which belongs to techne. We must observe
two things with respect to the meaning of this
word. One is that techne is the name not only for
the activities and skills of the craftsman but also
for the arts of the mind and the fine arts. Techne
belongs to bringing-forth, to poiesis; it is
something poetic.3
According to Heidegger, Technology is a mode of discovery. By

means of technology, man search the phenomena hitherto
hidden, and reveals them one day. His conclusion here addresses
to Aristotle’s Niomachean Ethics writings on description of
“Art”. Heidegger follows his etymological analysis as:
Techne is a mode of aletheuein. It reveals

whatever does not bring itself forth and does not
3 Heidegger, Martin, (1982). The Question Concerning

Technology and Other Essays, Harper and Row Publishers,
p12-13
yet lie here before us, whatever can look and turn
out now one way and now another.4
Instrumental and Anthropological View
Although based on the past and related to the etymological

analysis of the Ancient Greek Period, the structural theories
employed by Heidegger while defining the concept of
“Technology” loom large in the “Philosophy of Technology”,
shedding light on notably current questions in our modern-day
contemporary philosophy. In the analysis he has made,
Heidegger argues that the essence of technology is not based on
a technological foundation and based upon the fact that
technology is a human activity; he introduces an anthropological
definition which he later discusses with its other dimensions.
The current conception of technology, according

to which it is a means and a human activity, can
therefore be called the instrumental and
anthropological definition of technology.5
This definition, acknowledging technology as a human-invented

concept, includes as well as an anthropological positioning of
the definition due to the common use of instruments by
technological endeavors from production to application, the
concept of instrumentality. According to Heidegger, technology
is a means to an end and he includes modern technology into the
same framework by saying:
[...] modern technology too is a means to an end.

That is why the instrumental conception of
technology conditions every attempt to bring man
4 Ibid
5 Ibid, p5
24 Data-Reality
into the right relation to technology. Everything

depends on our manipulating technology in the
proper manner as a means.6
Certainly, while saying that “technology is a means to an end",
Heidegger states that he does not stick to this view with absolute
devotion and in addition to the anthropological morphology of
the definition of technology, in his article titled “Question
Concerning Technology”, he increasingly makes an expansion
towards human nature and behavior. According to Heidegger,
“Technology" is a means to govern earth. Yet, it brings along
some dangers. Heidegger’s technological observation
considering the mentioned dangers follows a very pessimistic
line. Because, technology views our earth as a resource and it
rapidly and unquestioningly consumes this resource assumed as
boundless. Of course, the developments existing in the period in
which the specified definition was introduced shall not be over-
looked either. The world has recovered from two major mass
wars and as in the example of World War II – period – Japan, by
means of the advanced war technologies employed, hundreds of
thousands have been annihilated with a single intervention. Post-
war philosophers now come to terms with war and start
questioning the limits of science and technology. Nevertheless,
the irresponsible social attitude regarding the dominative power
of technology in favor of human hegemony leads to irreparable
errors. Deprived of its social morals and sense of responsibility,
a mass can very easily interfere with the existing peaceful world
order. Now, the world is smaller in terms of volumetric
greatness conception; the desire of a global conquest and
intervention is no more a movie theme, but a leading idea in
world politics.
Lorenzo Simpson proposes a definition close to Heidegger’s

line, yet not as biased as his. Lorenzo Simpson defines
technology as 'that constellation of knowledge, processes, skills,
6 Ibid
and products whose aim is to control and transform7. Simpson,

indicating the controlling behavior of technology, conceives a
definition similar to the governing character of technology
proposed by Heidegger. Andrew Murphy and John Potts, on the
other hand, observe as follows, regarding the definition of
technology:
A common definition of technology would refer to

its artificial character: that is, a technology is not a
natural object but one made by humans. [...]8
Is technology really a human invention? Are there no other

living beings utilizing technology? Before proceeding to open
this topic up for discussion, it is necessary, first, to examine the
concept of instrument. Instruments could be summarized as
objects that are not directly part of our bodies, yet that serves a
purpose when used by our bodies. When we desire to hang a
painting onto the wall, our bodies remain inadequate to install
the nail providing the hanging system and we complement this
need of ours with an instrument such as a hammer. While we use
the hammer, as stated by Heidegger, our functional relationship
beyond the materialistic becomes transparent and unquestioning
the hammer, because the hammer is ‘ready-to-hand’. Yet, if the
hammer is broken as Heidegger puts it, a different questioning
process is at work for us. Issues like what material the hammer
is made of and its production method, thereof, emerge and now
the hammer transforms into a ‘present-to-hand’ state for us. This
is one of the points Heidegger criticizes. People perceive
emerging technological resources as ‘ready-to-hand’ and utilize
them without adequate questioning. As in the example of the
shattered atomic bomb, humanity has first remained
disinterested in a tragically situation whose results has
7 Nye, David E. (2007), Technology Matters The MIT Press,

p16
8 Murpie, Andrew & Potts, John (2003), Culture and
Technology Palgrave, p4
26 Data-Reality
manifested later and has just been a witness to the entire process.
Certainly, the concept of instruments exists within a more

complicated system. The airplanes, which we use as instruments
to fulfill our need for transport in the skies, embody hundreds of
smaller instruments within. The most significant feature of
instruments in their technological advancement is their being
modular and (their) coming together to create more advanced
systems by forming a common structure beyond their individual
technical possibilities. The following definition is used for
instrument in the book titled “Animal Tool Behavior” by Robert
W. Shumaker, Kristina R. Walkup, and Benjamin B. Beck:
The external employment of an unattached or

manipulable attached environmental object to alter
more efficiently the form, position, or condition of
another object, another organism, or the user itself,
when the user holds and directly manipulates the
tool during or prior to use and is responsible for
the proper and effective orientation of the tool. 9
While creating and advancing civilization, humanity has

continuously and intimately been interested in what’s been going
on around in nature and has always found some technological
solutions within nature. Today, scientists and engineers are
observing many creatures living under the ground with care
while developing many methods for digging tunnels in the
construction sector. In another example still, having found no
solutions – through scientific theories – for the unsolvable case
of early identification of earthquakes, scientists in France are
carrying out research on a special frog species as the early
messengers of earthquakes. Due to change in taste of
underground waters caused by the chemical reactions occurring
9 Shumaker, Robert W., Walkup, Kristina R., Beck,

Benjamin B. (2011) Animal Tool Behavior : The Use and
Manufacture of Tools by Animals, John Hopkins Press, p5
before earthquakes, the mentioned frog species feels discomfort

and emerges above the ground abandoning its habitat. It could
not be said that an early earthquake identification system based
on an analysis of underground water is in the limelight as a
viable method inspired by scientific theories.
In addition to all these models we adopt as examples, there are

many creatures utilizing technology through various means. For
example, there are many observations concerning some
chimpanzees in nature using some tools to gain advantages for
themselves while hunting.
No fewer than 22 times, researchers documented

wild chimpanzees on an African savanna
fashioning sticks into "spears" to hunt small
primates called lesser bush babies. In each case a
chimpanzee modified a branch by breaking off
one or two ends and, frequently, using its teeth to
sharpen the stick. The ape then jabbed the spear
into hollows in tree trunks where bush babies
sleep.10
As the simple example above shows, the use of an object outside

its own body by a beast pursuant to its requirements reveals that
technology is not peculiar to man. Since, however, man is able
to transfer his past knowledge through new generations; they
could build a civilization by laying up such bricks.
It is necessary to draw the attention to the peculiar use of

instruments without imitation mentioned in the examples above.
It is observed that some creatures have achieved surprising
advances in the use of instruments by imitating humans. It is
widely observed that Captive chimpanzees and orangutans are
attempting to copy behaviors of human beings.
10 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070222-
chimps-spears.html (Retrieved March 26, 2012)
28 Data-Reality
Russon (2000,76) described an orangutan in a rehabilitation

camp who “hammered nails, sawed wood, sharpened axe blades,
chopped wood, dug with shovels, siphoned fues, swept porches,
painted buildings, pumped water, blew blowguns, fixed blowgun
darts, lit cigarettes, (almost) lit a fire, washed dishes and
laundry, baled water from a dugout by rocking it side to side, put
on boots, tried on glasses, combed her hair, wiped her face with
Kleenex, carried parasols against the sun, and applied insect
repellent to herself,” in each case using the technique that
“matched the one used [by humans] in the camp.” 11
The advantages created on the use of technology by humankind

have of course reached gigantic dimensions with respect to other
creatures. The most fundamental feature distinguishing humans
from other creatures is its ability to share discoveries and finds
with fellow species and hence to progress knowledge further.
This is why the civilization established by humankind has
evolved through time and has provided significant advantages to
stakeholders with respect to other creatures.
With the use of technology, the humankind almost governing

nature emerges – upon birth – as a very weak, fragile and
vulnerable being in nature. Averagely one year needs to pass for
it to stand upright and walk on its own. According to hypothesis,
our skull developing linearly with our intelligence has expanded
and become larger in time. The expanding skull poses fatal risks
like being trapped in the birth canal during birth. By means of
the science of medicine, the birth has transformed into a very
complicated process. Humanity maintains its survival endeavors
again dependent on technological possibilities. According to
a list of the causes of human deaths worldwide for the year 2002
provided by World Health Organization, 4.32% of deaths were
because of prenatal causes and there is a drastic decline on
11 Shumaker, Robert W., Walkup, Kristina R., Beck,

Benjamin B. (2011) Animal Tool Behavior :The Use and
Manufacture of Tools by Animals, John Hopkins Press, p
xii
Infant, neonatal, and post neonatal mortality rates since 1940s to

2005.12
Timothy Taylor states as follows in his book titled “The

Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human
Evolution”;;
Human beings should not exist. Our skulls are so

large that we risk being stuck and dying even as
we are struggling to be born. Helped out by a
technical team - obstetrician, midwife, and a
battery of bleeping machines - the unwieldy
cranium is followed into the light by a pathetic
excuse for a mammalian body, screaming,
hairless, and so muscularly feeble that it has no
chance of supporting its head properly for months.
How did a species in which basic reproduction is
so easily fatal, and whose progeny need several
years of adult support before they can dress
themselves, not just evolve but become the
dominant species on its planet, capable of
inhabiting virtually environment, from the tropics
to the poles, the coasts to the high continental
plateaux, prospecting under mountains and across
the ocean floor?13
In the evolution of humankind, the use of tools is accepted as a

significant measure regarding the existence and development of
intelligence. It is extremely difficult to confirm when and where
the first use of tools was adopted due to the impossibility of
12 National Vital Statistical Reports :

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_10.pdf,
(Retrieved April 12th, 2012)
13 Taylor, Timothy (2010) ,The Artificial Ape : How
Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution,
Palgrave Macmillan, p4
30 Data-Reality
determining whether the retrieved archaeological finds were

made by human effort or not. According to claims, the
Australopithecus genus which lived 4 million years ago in the
Ice Age, shows remarkable similarities considering their
anatomical characteristics due to their bipedal capabilities and
mouth structure and concerning the use of tools, the most
ancient findings belong to this genus. According to an article in
Nature magazine;
An international team of scientists led by Dr.

Zeresenay Alemseged from the California
Academy of Sciences has discovered evidence that
human ancestors were using stone tools and
consuming meat from large mammals nearly a
million years earlier than previously documented.
While working in the Afar Region of Ethiopia,
Alemseged's "Dikika Research Project" team
found fossilized bones bearing unambiguous
evidence of stone tool use -- cut marks inflicted
while carving meat off the bone and percussion
marks created while breaking the bones open to
extract marrow. The bones date to roughly 3.4
million years ago and provide the first evidence
that Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis,
used stone tools and consumed meat. 14
From the first time in the ancient periods of history, when

humanity was first acquainted with the primitive use of
instruments to our day, very high-level developments have been
achieved technologically in the history of civilization. In
14 California Academy of Sciences (2010, August 11). Oldest

evidence of stone tool use and meat-eating among human
ancestors discovered: Lucy's species butchered meat.
ScienceDaily. (Retrieved April 9, 2012, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/1008111350
n 39.htm)
addition to its discoveries on earth, humanity, unable to

decelerate, continued its explorations in space also. Findings in
space explorations and mysteries concerning the obscurity of
space while enabling humanity the opportunity to ask itself
questions regarding life also influenced humanity with its
cultural dimensions in various fields of art. At this point, it
makes sense to refer to the opening scene, The Dawn of Man, of
the legendary 1968-movie of Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space
Odyssey.
In the prehistoric man scene, a black devastating monolith arises

surprisingly in front of a tribe of apes foraging for food in a
desert. Later it is inferred that the black monolith initiates a
change in thought of an ape that would soon discover that a bone
could be used as an instrument for destruction. Even with the
help of this technological (en) framing, empowered apes are able
to suppress the other tribe by killing its leader and limit the
usage of a pond as a water resource by the other tribes. The
scene ends with a magnificent transition of a bone thrown up to
the sky by a ferocious ape slowly turning into a spaceflight that
travels in the far future. In that particular scene where we see a
transition of millions years of time, humanity builds a version of
a civilization framed on an everlasting progression of
technological growth. What needs to be questioned is this
framework. Have science and technological advances which
have occupied a significant part in the history of civilization
provided a true civilization for humanity?
Revealing: Heidegger's Definition
In his efforts to define technology, Martin Heidegger, a notable

philosopher of Modern Ages, depicts it as a character with
various behaviors. For Heidegger, technology actually serves for
a basic motive already within man. Its unearthing, revealing
feature introduces the unspecified to man, but after specifying
them. This basic behavior is similar to the situation in the
famous Pandora’s Box myth on irresistible human curiosity. The
mankind, as a knowledge addict trying to discover in endless
32 Data-Reality
curiosity, lead to many costly consequences for civilization

history because of his mistakes for the sake of technological
progress. Heidegger brings forth certain basic concepts through
epistemological analyses in order to explain this irresponsible
attitude of technology to man. In his article titled "The Question
Concerning Technology", Heidegger mentions four causalities
of philosophy in his analysis on the purpose of technology.
For centuries philosophy has taught that there are

four causes: (1) the cause materialis, the material,
the matter out of which, for example, a silver
chalice is made; (2) the cause formalis, the form,
the shape into which the material enters; (3) the
cause finalis, the end, for example, the sacrificial
rite in relation to which the chalice required is
determined as to its form and matter; (4) the cause
efficiencies, which brings about the effect that is
the finished, actual chalice, in this instance, the
silversmith. What technology is, when represented
as a means, discloses itself when we trace
instrumentality back to the fourfold causality. 15
During his discussion on the aforementioned causal

categorizations, Heidegger tries to uncover traditional model
of causality comparison on a silver chalice example and he
asserts that Aristotle doctrine does not embody a cause
efficiencies component. During his analysis on the word “logos”
in the relevant part of the article, based on its joint meanings
with the Greek “legein”, he postulates that legein is derived from
the root apophainesthai and he includes into the discussion
another dimension of the word that he defines as “to reveal
something”. According to Heidegger, the silversmith who
produces the silver chalice in the example given in the article

p6
defines the emergence of the object, while producing a holy

chalice, as the material’s finding its form. However, the object is
not just limited to finding form, it also undertakes a purpose.
This is why, the produced chalice does not just remain as a
chalice, but through another identity, it transforms into a holy
chalice. The object is limited or framed by its new identity.
Heidegger expresses the constraints the object is under with the
word telos in Greek which means purpose. As a result, the object
has achieved its purpose. The silversmith does not just produce
an ordinary form, but he also conveys into the object the essence
of existing as a chalice. In this existential analysis referring to
the Greek thought, he further states as follows in his article;
But in what, then, does the playing in

unison of the four ways of occasioning
play? They let what is not yet present arrive
into presence. Accordingly, they are
cohesively ruled over by a bringing that
brings what presences into appearance.
Plato tells us what this bringing is in a
sentence from the Symposium (205b):
"Every occasion for whatever passes over
and goes forward into presence from that
which is not presence is poiesis, is
bringing-forth [Her-vor-bringen]16.
Bringing-forth means give birth to or produce. However

Heidegger characterizes two profiles of bringing forth. He thinks
that what the artist or craftsman engages during the process of
bringing-forth into existence is ‘poiesis’. Alternatively, as
illustrates with his example of "the bursting of a blossom into
bloom, in itself", bringing forth that exists in nature is 'physis'.
He intersects the two characters of bringing forth by saying
"Physis also, the arising of something from out of itself, is a
16 Ibid, p10
34 Data-Reality
bringing-forth, poiesis. Physis is indeed poiesis in the highest

sense"17
Heidegger returns to his discussion on how does bringing-forth

happen in either nature or art and he introduces a new
etymological character to the subject. He claims that bringing-
forth brings out of concealment into unconcealment, hence
revealing. It is needless to say that his sequential etymological
analysis aims to construct a certain pattern for asserting further
inferences. Heidegger points out that before attempting at any
progress on the analysis of the term "revealing", he feels
responsible for clarifying his purpose in referring to the word
"revealing" as a baseline for a profound comprehension of the
subject matter that is technology.
But where have we strayed to? We are

questioning concerning technology, and we
have arrived now at aletheia, at revealing.
What has the essence of technology to do
with revealing? The answer: everything.
For every bringing-forth is grounded in
revealing. [...] Instrumentality is considered
to be the fundamental characteristic of
technology. If we inquire, step by step, into
what technology, represented a means,
actually is, then we shall arrive at
revealing. The possibility of all productive
manufacturing lies in revealing. 18
Heidegger introduces an alternative way of thinking about

technology. In his terms, technology does not only cover
instrumentality as a scope, but it is also a way of revealing.
Thereupon, technology is no more a closed domain, assumes
material characteristics, as well as an explicitly human manner
17 Ibid, p10
18 Ibid, p12
of behavior. Revealing appears as a character, which can

overlook all technological activities as a supra-identity.
Heidegger's notion of portraying such a sophisticated supposedly
materialistic concept "technology" into a poetic circumstance is
quite counter intuitive. In order to convey further affirmations on
his argument Heidegger turns to etymological analysis of the
word "Technology".
[...] The word stems from the Greek.

Technikon means that which belongs to
techne. We must observe two things with
respect to the meaning of this word. One is
that techne is the name not only for the
activities and skills of the craftsman, but
also for the arts of the mind and the fine
arts. Techne belongs to bringing-forth, to
poiesis; it is something poietic.19
Heidegger carries out a very consistent structural analysis in

order to describe the nature of technology. He advances step by
step to his desired final point by means of establishing
connections between concepts. With asserting that the
technology is a mode of revealing, Heidegger illustrates how
technology embodies in a particular shape within a certain
framework that partake an existential intentionality rather than
an instrumentality. According to Heidegger, Technology sees
the world as a standing-reserve (Bestand). While the world has
been revealed intensively through the extensive use of
technology, technology transforms the natural world into raw
materials and the mother earth becomes an irreparable source of
energy for production. Heidegger describes such a particular
human appreciation of the world as enframed (Gestell).
19 Ibid, p12
36 Data-Reality
Enframed means the gathering together of

that setting-upon which sets upon man, i.e.
challenges him forth, to reveal the real, in
the mode of ordering, as standing reserve. 20
Theoretical Frameworks
Today, it is possible to say that technology is something which

develops under exclusive hegemony of man in a dominative
form able to put entire world into peril. Human existence is
defined not only by his individual characteristics, but also
through his behavioral features in society. In this respect, the
analysis on social effects of technology and influence of society
on technology bears importance in order to make an actual
definition of technology and to perceive the nature of the
question.
The mutual influences of the technology human relationship,

gather around two fundamental thoughts under the headings of
Technological Determinism and Social Determinism. Both of
these opposing views, having become polarized in the context of
ideas, provide unique interpretations of the subject matter from
different perspectives within their theories. Yet, the human-
technology relationship continues to take on a more complicated
dimension with each passing day.
While sometimes it is Technologic Determinism that sheds light

on the complicated human-technology relationship problematic
resulting from the rapid technological advances of our day,
sometimes Social Determinism can reply, yet a healthy analysis
could never be obtained by a single theory alone. This situation
has a very simple explanation. Humanity and the technological
developments constructing civilization can never act
independent of each other. While the structure of the society is
20 Ibid, p20
continuously influenced by the technological developments,

similarly, the same could be stated for the reverse.
Technological Determinism
According to the theory of Technological Determinism, in our

day, technology is the sole driving force behind social change.
The structure of the society and its cultural precession develop
under the light of technological advances and change form.
Considering its period, Technological Determinism is a form of
thinking that has become more significant after the radical
structural changes induced by the Industrial Revolution on
societies. In his book titled “Does Technology Drive History?:
Dilemma of Technological Determinism", M. R. Smith says as
follows;
Referred to as "technological determinism" by

twentieth-century scholars, this belief affirms that
changes in technology exert a greater influence on
societies and their processes than any other
factor.21
The definition above is a significant assertion claiming that the

concept of Technological Determinism is the sole trigger for
societal change. According to this thought, technology is an
unavoidable change, it is autonomous and it is under continuous
improvement. As its name reveals, this deterministic view may
canalize the man-technology interaction into a rather simple
approach; nonetheless, it reveals many discussable questions
thanks to its clear attitude. Technological Determinism mustered
up support especially in the civilization where technology
developed rapidly as a value. During the Industrial Revolution
21 Roe Smith, Merritt and Marx, Leo ed (1994), Does

Technology Drive History?: Dilemma of Technological
Determinism, The MIT Press, p2
38 Data-Reality
and the competitive environment in the resulting new world

order, the concept of progress has quickly become popular and
attracted adherents. Progress promises a continuous
improvement with respect to the current state. Whereas
technology serves this purpose, the technological finds achieved
aim to continuously support a development in the life of
humankind.
If significant technological discoveries enhancing the standards

of living of people are studied, with the invention of steam
machines, for example, people could force the limits of their
physical powers and could achieve advantages of power and
speed otherwise unattainable on their own. With superior
advantages of utilization becoming widespread, during one
period, steam machines have resulted in a profound change in
the structural content of the society. By means of engines
operating with steam power then, more comfortable journeys
could be undertaken with the transport vehicles produced; with
physical distances continuously diminishing in time-scale and
depending on all of these, the space and time perceptions of
people have been changing too. The advantage of high velocity
in movement changed the progress rhythm of civilization as
well. Faster progress, a fundamental factor, paved way for
radical changes in human civilization. Even though distances
remained the same in metric scale, the travel times grew shorter;
such advantages rendered distance a temporal concept, rather
than spatial. The human conception of distance underwent a
radical change.
The use of electricity has brought yet another major difference

into the lives of people. Certainly, it should be kept in mind that
electricity is not a human invention. In some exposed documents
concerning Ancient Egyptian Civilization, it is mentioned that
some fish species in the Nile have electrical power. In addition
to the electrical power embodied by creatures in nature, if it is
also recognized that the lightning flashes occurring in the skies
in rainy days are also charged with electricity, it could be stated
that the existence of electricity reaches far earlier than the
history of humankind. The most significant success of humanity
on this matter is not the invention of electricity; but the success

lies in the control of electricity with intention and the governing
of this energy form.
Electrification is the widespread utilization – for various

applications – of the free-use power of electricity resulting from
the electrical energy through the use of other sources of energy.
In 1831, Michael Faraday demonstrated that electricity could be
generated by means of the magnetic field obtained by a magnet
and a copper cylinder through electro-magnetic inductance. By
means of other scientific studies following this development,
electricity became widespread as an easily accessible energy
form that people could use in their daily lives. By means of the
electrical applications becoming widespread, the modernization
process of the world also started accelerating. Each day people
got more frequently involved and established relationships with
objects operating with electricity and this change brought upon a
very significant differentiation in the social context. Marshall
McLuhan, in his book titled “Understanding Media” states as
follows concerning our structural interaction with electricity;
The new electric structuring and configuring of

life more and more encounters the old lineal and
fragmentary procedures and tools of analysis from
the mechanical age.22
The electrification process has created differences through two

fundamental approaches on people’s habits of use of objects.
The first could be defined as the transition from electricity-free
state to the electrified state of objects whose functions have been
brought into existence before the widespread use of electricity.
For example, by means of the possibilities offered by electricity,
the classical guitar instrument widely used in music and in the
cultural lives of people has been modified remaining devoted to
22 McLuhan, Marshall (1994) - Understanding Media : The

Extension of Man - The MIT Press, p26
40 Data-Reality
the working principles and the resulting electric guitar has been
presented for the use of musicians. However, although we
collate the situation under the general heading of the guitar
instrument, the musical forms flourished by these two
instruments have evolved into almost two entirely separate
esthetical languages. While the classical guitar has been subject
to minor modifications through time in its acoustical body and
fret structure, the electric guitar has rapidly and majorly changed
within technological opportunities.
The electric guitar fundamentally works through the principle of

converting the vibrations occurring on the strings into electrical
signals via electro-magnetic induction. While there are various
explanations as to whom first created the electric guitar, Lester
Williams Polsfuss (Les Paul) is mentioned as the creator of the
first solid body electric guitar. Yet, the first magnetic pickup
belongs to Ilyod Loar working in the company Gibson in 1924.
It is also mentioned in various sources that the first electrically
amplified guitar belonged to George Beauchamp working in
National Guitar Corporation in 1931. One thing could be said for
sure on all inventions of history: everything discovered is
subject to improvement and could have impact in the discovery
of other things also. The electric guitar has not just appeared as
it is over-night but has been gradually developed in the light of
some technological advances. In the emergence of the electric
guitar, the desire to amplify the acoustic sound level has been
the fundamental starting point.
Technological inventions are based on other existing

technological discoveries and as combinations continuously in
motion and feeding from each other; they point the way for the
next advancement. W. Brian Arthur, in his book titled "The
Nature of Technology - What It is and How It Evolves" states as
follow concerning the matter;
If you open a jet engine (or aircraft gas turbine

power plant, to give it its professional name), you
find components inside - compressors, turbines,
and combustion systems. If you open up other
technologies that existed before it, you find some

of the same components. Inside electrical power
generating system of the early twentieth century
were turbines and combustion systems; inside
industrial blower units of the same period were
compressors. Technologies inherit parts from the
technologies that preceded them, so putting such
parts together - combining them - must have a
great deal to do with how technologies come into
being.23
The electric guitar, with its changing structure, reveals a totally

new musical aesthetics each passing day. Having already gone
beyond amplifying the sound of the guitar instrument initially in
expanding jazz orchestras, with various effect devices and the
different playing techniques offered by its working principle, the
electric guitar has played a major role, in time, in the initiation
of peculiar musical genres like Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal,
Speed Trash and etc.
The second fundamental principle for transition in the

electrification process is the emergence of some new inventions
having nothing to do previously with total electricity content.
Although the telecommunication devices we commonly use
today like the radio, television, telephone point in the same
direction concerning a fundamental need, their principles of
working could have been established only after understanding
the structure of electricity. As a result of research carried out on
the transfer capability of electrons with the realization of the
fluidic nature of electricity, the electrical technology where a
signal could be transferred along conductive surfaces from one
end to the other, hence where information could be transmitted
has also opened new avenues for information technology.
23 Arthur, W.Brian (2009), The Nature of Technology – What

It Is and How It Evolves, Free Press, p19
42 Data-Reality
Before the use of electricity under human dominion,

communication was achieved through visual and auditory
perceptions with methods not very effective really like smoke
signals or through the sounds of drums. Although
communication applications are based on very ancient times,
telecommunication is a concept that has emerged with
electricity. In principle, as also stated by Marshall McLuhan,
primitively, at the core of communication there exists a receiver
and a transmitter and the information is transmitted from point A
to point B. The various telecommunication devices using
electrical information have today initiated a totally new period
within the history of civilization mentioned as the age of
communication.
The Age of Communication has encompassed, surrounded and

enframed people from all quarters. The information we convert
into electricity can reach the entire world in an instant through
media like Twitter, Facebook and e-mails. The converted
information is expressed within the transformation architecture
through a granular configuration simply as packets of
information. Being the character transformed into, electricity,
using its capability field-wise as a medium to move at the speed
of light can transfer information rapidly without any problems.
After she / he encodes in text format the instantiated products of
her / his thought system, peculiar to humankind, she / he uses the
material properties of the electricity she / he controls and
manages to transform the content that is desired to be
transmitted into a form such that it could progress within the
internal structure of the technology. This situation is an
important revolution in the field of telecommunications and the
prime architect for this change is, for sure, electricity.
Concerning the impact of electricity on our lives, McLuhan
states as follows;
As electrically contracted, the globe is no more

than a village. Electric speed in bringing all social
and political functions together in a sudden
implosion has heightened human awareness of
responsibility to an intense degree. It is this
implosive factor that alters the position of the

Negro, the teen-ager, and some other groups. They
can no longer be contained, in the political sense
of limited association. They are now involved in
our lives, as we in theirs, thanks to the electric
media.24
All the examples presented under the heading “Technological

Determinism” above has resulted in developments
revolutionizing human life. According to the theory of
Technological Determinism, the emerging technological
developments are unavoidable and other developments are
rapidly taking place in the various fields of life. Technology, in
positive and negative ways, has influences over societies and it
changes the lifestyles in the daily lives of individuals, it causes
differences in their ways of thinking and it differentiates social
relationships.
In his book titled "Understanding Media" (1964), Marshall

McLuhan says, "We shape our tools, and then our tools shape
us". What does McLuhan refer to by saying shaping? True to his
technological determinist approach McLuhan explains that
technological inventions by man the creator reforms and
modifies man the user. According to McLuhan, one of the most
significant inventions of the history of humankind is the
invention of the alphabet. By means of the alphabet, written
texts could have emerged, knowledge could become sharable
between generations. Trevor Wishart says the following on the
domination of the ‘written word’ in his book titled "On Sonic
Art".
Since very ancient times, human thought and

communication has been inextricably bound up
with the use of the written word. So much so that

44 Data-Reality
it becomes almost impossible for us to disentangle

ourselves for a moment from the web of written
wisdom and consider the problems of meaning
and communication in vitro, so to speak.25
With their plain meanings, words could be viewed as values

materializing a set of expressions converging to Plato’s ideal
objects. Surely, in terms of form content, words have no
meaning, yet words are associated and loaded with various
meanings. Only word fragments associated with meanings, by
means of the combinations they form together, evolve into a
greater form and bear a set of thoughts within various structures.
Throughout history, before the emerging of the alphabet, the
visual symbols establishing the constituents of words have
confronted us in several variations as hieroglyphs, cuneiforms.
Yet, since concepts cannot handle complicated thoughts in an
adequately clear way and with an unprejudiced identity, symbols
have increasingly put aside visual narration structures and have
become considerably plain in the typography form. The
concretized forms of thoughts, which try to make their way
through communication formulae, express their intended
expressions, express as possible the statements represented in
sentence patterns that are adorned with the unprejudiced plotting
of written statement. The logic of modern alphabet, that
linguistics reached, is actually formed from the symbol
infrastructure nowadays. When alphabet is studied from this
aspect, it is a code that needs to be resolved for who does not
know and a serious period of education is required to be able to
decipher.
According to McLuhan, by means of the alphabet causing us to

switch from oral communication to written communication,
visuality has surpassed aurality. Due to written communication,
in time, various social levels have been established in the
society, individuals shaped by standardized educational systems
25 Wishart, Trevor (1996), On Sonic Art, Routledge Press,

p11
have been able to find themselves places in different roles in the

society. In addition to the emergence of class differences, the
thinking habits of societies have become increasingly more
rational by means of written communication. Written
expressions ascribe a formalist content to thoughts and
materialize them. McLuhan remarks as follows on this topic;
Only alphabetic cultures have ever mastered

connected linear sequences as pervasive forms of
psychic and social organization. The breaking up
of every kind of experience into uniform units in
order to produce faster action and change of form
(applied knowledge) has been the secret of
Western power over man and nature alike. That is
the reason why our Western industrial programs
have quite involuntarily been so militant, and our
military programs have been so industrial. Both
are shaped by the alphabet in their technique of
transformation and control by making all
situations uniform and continuous. 26
McLuhan's clause above is quite provocating and disputable.

Although an important part of our daily lives, alphabet, that we
do not think much and ignore, is one of the essentials of
communication. In principle, even if way of communication
having progressed on the visual perception has developed
independently from sound object in many languages as graph
structure, intonation of words and different sound structure can
change the meaning of words in different languages. Language
is not an independent structure from sound. In this respect,
alphabet’s constitutional's impacts of sub-mnemonic on society,
the clause, that the formation of linear thought fictionalized by
McLuhan emerged, is improbable for the reason that language
had developed before alphabet had. Draping industry of Western

46 Data-Reality
Civilization in a militant character happens from the desire of

power domination that substantially keeps under the other
Western society. Actually reality that McLuhan ignored in his
provocative clause is that there is no need of shape structure of
alphabet for communication. But for communication between
people is a period of perception proceeding in the time axis, it
does not allow a sequential relationship. Since written
communication is based on patterns like grammatical structure,
syntax, etc. and since it follows a fundamental rule of being free
of errors in the course it is involved, it could be stated that it
creates some differences in the way of thinking of humankind.
To instantiate this through a tangible and striking example, it
could be observed that computer programming leads people to
be devoid of errors and in the following phases to perfectionism.
While developing computer software, there is an obligation to
strictly adhere to the declared variables and the readily available
functions. Otherwise, the developed program could not be
compiled and error messages are encountered. By means of the
advances in Information Technologies, several automatic editors
have been developed to help people write text and develop
computer software under such situations. In lieu of automatic
text editors, on the other hand, people no longer know the
correct spelling of words as they used to before. Furthermore,
the IntelliSense based compilers now frequently employed in
computer programming lightens the load of the programmer,
almost as if the computer and the computer programmer are
developing the software together hand-in-hand. Technology
shape-wise leads the content provided by the idea producer and
intervenes. Michael Heim in his book The Metaphysics of
Virtual Reality describes the interaction of human thought with
word processing as:
Word processing makes thoughts flow more

directly. Not only the mind but also the eye
follows insights as they occur. Thoughts appear on
the screen nearly as fast as they come to mind.
Sequence can be imposed afterward. Later we not
only see what we have mentally enunciated, but
also feel free to rearrange, reorganize, and change
what we thought or said we thought. Serious

penalties like retyping or cutting and pasting no
longer plague the computer user. If good thinking
means self-editing and self-criticism, then the
computer speeds up the thought process while
preserving the discipline of objectifying ideas. The
mind's eye and the physical eye work together.
The eye is wired to the brain via the computer,
making a feedback loop between mind and the
written word. Word processing is not just a
quantitative improvement in getting a job done
more efficiently.27
In written texts, thoughts transform their unique structure into a

set of expressions moulded as sentences formed by words
configured within granular and sequential relationships. Having
been translated into text, these expressions now become
independent of the holder of these ideas, transforming into
messages waiting to be sent to the receiving party. In his book
titled “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”,
McLuhan states that “The medium is the message", emphasizing
that the medium is the underlying determinant on how the
message shall be perceived. The message content has now lost
value compared to the form of the message. In order to analyze
this definition, which indeed could be accused of being
formalist, it is required to review McLuhan’s definition of the
medium. McLuhan states that "medium is any extension of
ourselves" and that is not much of a coincidence that he uses the
word technology interchangeably. In using the expansion of
extension in his definition of the medium, lies the belief that the
medium enriches our perception beyond our senses. People now
live in a period in which they can be instantly informed about
whatever is going on around the world. Technological advances,
no doubt, have enabled all of these. Technological Determinism
is frequently encountered in McLuhan’s writings and his
27 Heim, Michael (1993) The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality -

Oxford University Press, p43
48 Data-Reality
thoughts are very debatable. The most significant criticism about

him is that he neglects the socio-economical dimension behind
socio-cultural changes. McLuhan cynically comments for his
own thoughts as “I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt" 28.
Technological Determinism, with its one-sided view of human-
technology relationship, reveals significant assertions. However,
the socio-cultural interactions of the topic are as important as
technological developments. There is no doubt that technology
shapes human lives and reveals radical structural changes.
However, when the existence of technology is considered
independently of the existence of humankind, the thinking
structure of humankind fails to preserve its independent stance
for such a theory.
Social Determinism
The most significant common feature of the antagonistic

criticism made since Technological Determinism provides a
one-sided view of the theories it comes up with is the
problematic that the matter is being debated in a format that
could be described as the influence of sociological developments
on technological developments. The human-technology topic,
branching within the framework resulting from arguments
elaborated over the topic, is analyzed under different headings
based on the principle that a structure with socio-cultural
foundations shapes technological developments. One of the
most significant of the mentioned conceptual constructs is the
Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) theorized by Trevor
Pinch and Wiebe Bijker in their article titled "The Social
Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of
Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each
Other" published in 1984. According to SCOT Theory, social
constructions shape technological developments.
28 http://marshallmcluhan.com/mcluhanisms/ (Retrieved
10.06.2012)
Considering their opinions about SCOT theory, Pinch and Bijher

propose that the ‘linear model of innovation process’
construction theorized by Technological Determinism is a
limited method and that the mentioned model excludes many
essential arguments related to the topic. They suggest that
factors in the formation of a technological development are
continuously interacting with each other and that eluding the
linear structure; the model could be described in a multi-
dimensional and more eclectic way. They advocate that although
Technological Determinism describes the autonomous and
unavoidable character of technology, technological
developments yield different results in different constructions.
In the article they have written, Pinch and Bijher argue – through
the example of the Bakelite material – that technological
advances do not only have technological contents. According to
the authors, Bakelite has not only caused a revolution in plastics
material structure and content. Since the phenol material utilized
in the synthesis of Bakelite is a by-product of the defence
industry, by means of the active war-time production in 1918 of
the defence industry, there has been a prominent cost advantage
in its raw material and thus it has achieved competitive
advantages then compared to a semi-natural resin like celluloid.
One can speculate over whether Bakelite would

have acquired its prominence if it had not profited
from that phenol dumping. In any case it is clear
that a historical account founded upon the
retrospective success of the artifact leaves much
untold.29
The fact that Bakelite would be a pioneering material for the

plastics industry was not foreseen like this by the developers of
the technology. Some advances in technology cannot be shaped
29 Bijker, Wiebe E., Hughes, Thomas P., Pinch, Trevor.

(2012)The Social Construction of Technological Systems:
New Directions in the Sociology and History of
Technology, MIT Press, p18
50 Data-Reality
by technological reasons alone and sometimes a set of social

developments could as well adopt the role as the actual decision
maker.
If the recent historical development of the Internet, which is

widely used nowadays and which would indeed be a current
example for the societal shaping context of the SCOT Theory
suggested by Pinch and Bijher is reviewed, ARPANET
(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) is frequently
identified in sources as the tangible point of origin of the
Internet. ARPANET is the first information network of the
world developed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense
in the cold war era. Certainly, it shall be remembered that
effective communication of information over long distances is a
topic that technology has long catered with many solutions.
Before the emergence of computers, communication over long
distances was achieved via methods like telegraph, telephone,
and radio communication. The first significant model concerning
the establishment of an information network in the light of
information technologies is described as follows in the ‘Man-
Computer Symbiosis’ article of J.C.R. Licklider published in
1960;
It seems reasonable to envision, for a time 10 or

15 years hence, a “thinking centre” that will
incorporate the functions of present-day libraries
together with anticipated advances in information
storage and retrieval and the symbiotic functions
suggested earlier in this paper. The picture readily
enlarges itself into a network of such centers,
connected to one another by wide-band
communication lines and to individual users by
leased-wire services. In such a system, the speed
of the computers would be balanced, and the cost
of the gigantic memories and the sophisticated
programs would be divided by the number of

users.30
Through an information system established in 1969 between the

University of California at Los Angeles and the University of
California at Santa Barbara, the Stanford Research Institute and
University of Utah within the scope of the ARPANET project,
the system visualized by J.C.R. Licklider was actualized. The
ARPANET project was in fact a narrow-scoped project planned
and realized for the defense industry with government support.
The real purpose of the American Government was to build a
non-centric communications system in the cold-war period
against rising scenarios of nuclear war between USA and USSR
as Russia was called then. By this means, the possibility of
losing all information and control upon a failure in the centre
following a possible central attack was eliminated and through
the established nodes, protection and sharing of all information
was enabled. When the sociological dimensions and the human
factor of the technological development up to this point are
analyzed, it could be seen that the war phenomenon which is a
consequence of the desire to destroy others, an intrinsic part of
human nature, has laid the foundations for the Internet which
would cost the earth today and has caused a social revolution
and has initially been produced as a project that could provide an
advantageous state in case of a consequent nuclear war then.
Although we are talking about an extremely indirect

development process, trying to understand why and how an
emerging technology deviated from its major intended purpose
of use would present a more meaningful analysis with respect to
progressing over the current definition of the Internet. Today,
the Internet has reached a different dimension much beyond
being used as a tool serving war technologies. By means of the
convenient decreases in prices and physical dimensions,
30 SRS Research Report 61 p8 :

ftp://gatekeeper.research.compaq.com/pub/DEC/SRC/resear
ch-reports/SRC-061.pdf (Retrieved 23.04.2012)
52 Data-Reality
computers have gained widespread access to home users also

and through the further development of the TCP/IP architecture
which has been built in the 1970’s, information communication
has become so easy as it has never been before and it has
suddenly turned into the focus of technology.
While technology records many developments – paving the way

for the society – as milestones in history, humankind interprets
emerging developments in different ways, pushing the limits of
technology further and manipulating technology along a path
coinciding with its own desires. One of the most interesting
examples for this is the development of short messaging. Even
in this now very limited setting of numerical communication,
some creative messages could emerge. In 1989, Raina Fortini
typed 07734 on her beeper and sent this to the other side. When
the beeper is turned upside down, this number is read as the
word “hello”. Although the technology did not allow text-based
communications for pager devices yet then, the users could
develop creative ideas within their limited resources and they
could thus find solutions for their needs.
Putting forth a beacon of hope, similar to Edison’s voice record
Mary Had a Little Lamb, Fortini’s message “hello” could be
acknowledged as one of the developments triggering the process
where this need to communicate through short messages has
naturally emerged. Short messaging has become extremely
popular in time and according to current statistics concerning
this, it is observed that every second 193,000 short messages are
being sent.31
In the 1990’s, with the rapid spreading of mobile phones, the

short messaging feature that was offered in addition to the voice
calls, the major function of the mobile phones then was quickly
adopted by users and was started to be used with enthusiasm.
Within the short message structure averagely limited to a
maximum of 160 characters, people can form the information
31 http://www.mbaonline.com/text-is-changing-the-world/
(Retrieved July 12, 2012)
they wish to transmit with short expressions and instantly send it

to the other receiving side.
With mobile phones becoming widespread very rapidly in the

90’s, the short messaging feature provided in addition to voice
talking, the major feature of mobile phones was easily adopted
by users and was commenced into use with enthusiasm. Bound
by a numerical value such as the maximum number of
characters, the users of the short messaging system soon adopted
methods avoiding the language structure governed by grammar
and punctuation rules and using a set of abbreviation methods,
they revealed a language peculiar to short messaging on mobile
phones. Presented below are sets of examples for the abbreviated
expressions for short messaging;
?4U : I have a question for you
@TEOTD : At the end of the day
10X : Thanks
2NTE : Tonight
B2W : Back to work
RUOK : Are you ok?
CU L8R : See you later
:-@ : Screaming
:-* : Kiss
54 Data-Reality
As observed above, the emerging new language embodies a set

of abbreviations, different vocal structures and graphics oriented
typographical narratives. The conventional coupling of written
language and spoken language, detached from vocal structure
and typography, proposes an association with much more
intimacy in short messaging. What Vilem Flusser mentions on
programming languages emerges with another aspect for the
users of this communication language. Flusser states as follows
concerning programming languages;
Most of us have not mastered them (the new

computer codes); on the other hand, we have all
learned the alphabet, and print has resulted in a
comprehensive, democratizing literacy. The new
computer codes have made us all illiterate again. 32
Literacy is a human-specific ability transferred from generation

to generation. During the long periods in history, Literates have
had different privileges than illiterates. Beside illiterates are
adopted as lower class, wealth of knowledge that literates got by
reading is accepted a criteria of superiority as intellectual. At
this point today, a remarkable success has been achieved in
perception of script with effort of intensive and strategic mass
education given on behalf of literacy in society.
In fact language that Flusser referred to is not daily language

belonging to literature. Flusser referred to programming
language providing us to communicate with computer.
Computers use a language that works with the combination of
presence and absence of electricity is built on a digital system
and is symbolized with ones and zeros on its bases. But this
language expressed as machine language is quite difficult to be
perceived this by human. Sooner or later computer system
working with ones and zeros enable to communicate human
32 Flusser, Vilem (2011) Does Writing Have a Future? Univ

of Minnesota Press, p55
more easily than machine language thanks to inter language

developed later. Although they show parallelism in terms of
working principles with each other of different programming
language used with several names as C++, Java, Python, it is not
said that none of these languages are as flexible as daily
language.
Computer programming languages shows different features than

principles of daily languages with its normative nature that does
not tolerate errors. Although alphabet that is used at
programming to write software is a familiar system, a set of
patterns for writing program are in spoken language. The most
common one is for loop. A simple for loop is written like that.
for (var int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++) {
//do this for 10 times
At this pattern, what said to computer is that it makes curly

braces’ inside 10 times. It is apparent that we do not say person
to make the thing 10 times. But some of the logic clauses have
structures that are close to spoken language. For instance;
if (k<5) {
// do this if k is less than 5
In this clause, if object named k –it is expected most likely a

number. – is less than 5, those that is curly braces’ inside are
begun to be manipulated by the computer. Clause in here is quite
close to clause of “if object named k is less than 5, do that” in
daily communication. As it is understood from two examples
that are given, condition that Flusser states as illiterate is valid.
Computer programming is not that which can only be done by
somebody who knows English. Advantages that knowing
English provides is an insignificant detail during the period of
learning computer programming. In many places of the World
56 Data-Reality
although their native languages is English, programmers can

programme computer successfully. Well, in this situation, can
we say that computer knows English? On this point John
Searle’s Chinese Room clause is an expression that needs to be
considered. According to Searle, when a computer that does not
know Chinese is programmed with appropriate commands and
rules, it can communicate in Chinese by establishing necessary
connection via the other language that it knows. Actually
computers do not knows any language deliberatively during the
process of computer programming like computers do not know
Chinese.
The pseudo-language emerging in the short messaging media

with the use of technology causes structural breakdown of the
communication languages of people existing in their social lives.
Pitch & Bjiker use the following definition for the SCOT Theory
in their article titled “Social Construction of Facts and
Artifacts”;;
In SCOT, the developmental process of a

technological artifact is described as an alternation
of variation and selection.33
There are many theories that were developed on question of how

technological evolution occurs. Some developed theories show
parallelism with theories that is established on evolution of
living things. According to Model developed on Chaos theory,
evolution can be interpreted that diversity existing thanks to
major differences revealed by some minor variations pass filter
of time. Looking back to the technology, technological
developments throughout the history have turned into a motion
33 Bijker, Wiebe E., Hughes, Thomas P., Pinch, Trevor. The

Social Construction of Technological Systems: New
Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology,
MIT Press, p411
and technology has come to a state that is furthering as long as it

develops. Many random results occurring in experiments done in
laboratory have become the starting point of project turned into
practice today.
Actor Network Theory
Is it possible to describe a phenomenon with all of its

dimensions? Regarding its structure, technology sheds light on
systematic analyses and with the rational construction it reveals,
it excludes the factor of human spontaneity. Whereas, from the
day it first came into being to today, humanity, in various stages,
has evolved with technology and technology still keeps feeding
from human nature.
At this point of the discussion, it is necessary to talk about

another acknowledged theory, the Actor Network Theory (ANT)
which shelters a more reconciliatory approach with respect to
the structurally polarized theories of Technological Determinism
and Social Determinism mentioned above.
Actor-Network Theory is a social theory seeded by Michel

Callon, Bruno Latour and John Law. According to ANT, all
actors interacting within a system, human or non-human, have
equivalent importance in the network structure they reveal. All
progress taking place in time shall be analyzed with all of its
dimensions and shall not be evaluated alone, isolated from its
surroundings. Joseph Goguen remarks as follows for ANT;
Actor-network theory can be seen as a systematic

way to bring out the infrastructure that is usually
left out of the "heroic" accounts of scientific and
technological achievements. Newton did not really
act alone in creating the theory of gravitation: he
needed observational data from the Astronomer
Royal, John Flamsteed, he needed publication
support from the Royal Society and its members
(most especially Edmund Halley), he needed the
58 Data-Reality
geometry of Euclid, the astronomy of Kepler, the

mechanics of Galileo, the rooms, lab, food, etc. at
Trinity College, an assistant to work in the lab, the
mystical idea of action at a distance, and more,
much more (see the book by Michael White). The
same can be said of any scientific or technological
project.34
According to Bruno Latour, while trying to describe technology-

human relationship with social constructivism or realism, these
two points of view (alone) fall short of understanding the subject
matter. Whereas, according to ANT, rather than trying to
analyze the topic viewing it from two mutually opposing poles, a
wide network model including social and technological content
could be designed.
According to Latour, substances render their non-visible states

visible within the network structure they inhabit, they branch out
and with their various features they form a node of the network.
A substance involved in a network, turns into a thing, revealing
the features it carries. According to Latour’s expression, ‘matter
of fact’ has transformed into ‘matter of concern’. The object
mentioned is an actor establishing connections within the
network structure. ANT, on the other hand, comes up with
analyses examining the connections between the actors within
the network.
If we consider the space shuttle that has an extremely

complicated structure in terms of technological content; it is
apparent that, in addition to the thousands of technological
components making up the shuttle, the bureaucratic system
including the human factor involved in the process has
equivalent impact on the success or failure of the flight. A
probable human error that could be encountered in the flight
34 http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/users/goguen/courses/268D/5.html
(Retrieved 25.04.2012)
program could render years of meticulous technological

endeavors and efforts suddenly abortive.
Rather than establishing fixed theories, ANT is an approach

devoted to describing socio-technological events within specific
scopes. It has a structure that equilibrates the interactions
becoming asymmetrical in the balances of power that could be
encountered between the actors in a socio-technological
network. Rather than performing state analysis based on agents
and definitions, ANT tries to generate descriptions through the
behaviours and features of actors within the concept. Latour,
states as follows on the concept of explanation in his book titled
“Technology Is Society Made Durable In Law”;;
[...] explanation does not follow from description;

it is description taken that much further. 35
While definitions bring any sort of substance into a self-

contained state, actors, with their objectified states within the
network structure, reach a dimension far beyond their definitions
at the beginning. With its expression similar to Heidegger’s
definition for “to become”, according to ANT, existing is a
continuous process of transformation. The network structure
caused by technology-human relationship creates oscillations by
the waving motions of various actors, transforming in a fluidic
structure and travelling in motion.
According to ANT, actors whose complicated structures gather

behind simple patterns in time, transform into black boxes. For
example, with its technologically complicated structure, the
automobile, due to the cabin interface clothed onto the system
forming her structure, has evolved into a simple machine for the
users, which we could put the key in and run.
35 Latour, B. (1999). Technology Is Society Made Durable.

In Law, J., ed., Sociology of Monsters.
60 Data-Reality
ANT has adopted three fundamental principles as its

methodology. The first approach, known as agnosticism,
stipulates the necessity of abandoning all prejudices concerning
actors establishing the network structure and the necessity of
dominion of objective thought in structural analysis. The second
method named as Generalized Symmetry emphasizes that all
network actors shall be compared using equivalent criteria. The
third method is named as Free Association and according to this
method the formation of a separation between natural and social
events shall be avoided.
Latour, in his article titled “Technology is Society Made

Durable” progresses through a very simple example and tells
how to establish relations in the network structure through the
context and content of Active Network Theory. According to
Latour, the design of the hunky key holders widely used at
hotels, given to the guests and carrying the room keys has been
established as a result of a set of interactions of common factors
relevant to the topic. Since hotel workers ask the guests – when
they are leaving the hotel to wander around – to leave the keys
to the reception, they have searched for some solutions
concerning this topic. In the trials carried out, a warning text
hung at the reception mentioning leaving the keys to the
reception has not interested the guests much and this approach
could thus not establish a solution. When, instead, keys were
given to the guests along with very large and heavy key holders,
the keys transformed into an object that the guests did not want
to carry around with them and the guests have preferred to leave
the keys at the reception. As observed in this example, the idea
of imposing the desired thought to the other party with a
warning message as initially foreseen has not attained the
desired result as planned. In the mentioned article, Latour
deduces as follows based on the attained result in the example;
Any vocabulary we might adopt to follow the

engagement of non-humans into the social link
should consider both the succession of hands that
transport a statement and the succession of

transformations undergone by that statement. 36
As stated by Active Network Theory at the beginning, in a

network structure that could roughly be depicted as a sharing
between hotel-reception-guest-key, all actors are on the same
level and involved equivalently to the discussion and with the
relations resulting from the mutual interactions of the actors, a
solution has been attained. Bruno Latour releases the Black Box
notion in relation to technological evolution. To Latour,
scientific developments begin as a empty and transparent box.
After a period of time, this empty and transparent box fill with
findings procured as a result of studies done. This box beginning
to fill over time, gains a qualification that is acceptable for
everyone. As a result, a claim putting forward, has developed
and been surrounded with supporting views. At this point,
Latour mentions that the box turned into a black box. After that
black box begin to become constituent without questioning the
basic opinions and details that create its structure for other
possible arguments.
One of the best examples suitable for this clause is a automobile.

Automobiles composes of that thousand pieces composing their
structures come together. Engine system that provides mobility
to automobile places unnoticeably firstly under the body shell.
By this means, many automobile drivers travel in a way that they
forget the existence of engine too. Engine with its complicated
mechanical structure was produced as a working system and
with Latour’s statement;; it was mounted to automobile properly
as a closed black box. In case of the possible failure, engine is
visible and after the problem is solved, it is closed again.
The theories employed above to describe the mutual interactions

of human-technology relationship guide for carrying out status
36 Latour, Bruno: "Technology is society made durable" ,

Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and
Domination Ed. John Law, Routledge 1991, p106
62 Data-Reality
analyses on a subject basis. Unbeknownst to us usually

regarding their existences, technological expansions emerges
with their multidimensional aspects, as part of the relationship of
humans with their bodies, sometimes inside it, sometimes
outside.
63
Beyond the Boundaries of Human Body
While the structure of technology and human relationship

evolving through time changes human’s view of the body
concept, the humane desire to desire beyond the available
capabilities of the human body is reinforced further with some
possibilities presented by technology and its boundaries are
continuously forced by the imagination of the humankind. As
technology sometimes imitates as a model the fascinating,
perfectly fictionalized structure of the human body in various
fields like mechatronics, robot science, etc., humankind, even at
the most primitive stages of technology has linked various
applications as an extension of its body to its structure.
When we study the historical development of eyeglasses, we

observe that the invention of optical lenses has a significant role
in the emergence of the technology. As mentioned in the
eyeglass example, displaying small objects near us as bigger is a
physical requirement; equally compelling for various scientists –
in time – has been the topic of optical technologies for observing
far away objects.
The opportunities provided to the scientists by the optical

technologies obtained as a result of research carried out have
enabled the inspection – to the smallest detail – of otherwise
unseeable objects very far away and have paved the way for the
advancing the science of astronomy. In his book titled
"Philosophy of Technology", Don Ihde tells the following about
Galileo, one of the most significant figures of the science of
astronomy:
[Galileo] who took the use of the compound lenses

already extant, and made them into a telescope
with which he began to make the great empirical
discoveries[...] Galileo was among the first of the
Europeans to make a technologically embodied
64 Data-Reality
science in his use of instruments and experimental

devices for experiments.37
With the help of the telescope, Galileo has examined celestial

bodies very far away from Earth and he has made various
scientific observations. The telescopic instruments helping the
scientist to observe has become an extension of him and have
enabled him to achieve a set of activities that he desired to do,
yet he could not perform with his physical capabilities. With
respect to features of use when compared to the telescopic tool
employed in the past, today we encounter more examples where
people control extremely complicated machines in order to
achieve a set of needs. However, in addition to the example
presented above, sometimes the activity of technology extending
out of the body could be included in the body, into its physical
structure. Scientific research carried out on the artificial
materials accomplishing body functions or helping their
operation, frequently encountered in the modern science of
medicine has reached successful levels.
Embodied Technologies
Is technology a thought having emerged to control nature? In the

name of controlling nature beyond their powers, people have
created systems more powerful than themselves. If we are to
proceed on the path initiated by this technologically
deterministic approach, it is evident that, at the foundation of the
mentioned motive to control, lies – as a building stone – a
significant capacity for power. Being able to make tons of load
easily take off by a simple button, humankind has surpassed her
/ his own physical capacity and guided the civilization she / he is
in by means of the countless machines she / he has designed and
produced.
37 Ihde, Don (1993) - Philosophy of Technology, Paragon

House, p25
Considering their features of utilization, it is possible to observe

that machines frequently act as extensions of our bodies. The
most common example we could give for this is our routine of
using automobiles. Today, the automobile is well beyond a
machine we control with our feet and arms. When the speed
reached nowadays comes into question, the automobile has
transformed into another form of a body. Although the
behaviours we exhibit while using automobiles have been
defined by various traffic rules, to give a more significant
example, the fast travelling state on the highway has internalized
the feeling that we are in motion with our physical bodies. The
body is no more made up of mere flesh and bones, but it merges
with the chassis and the engine skills of the automobile. The
object in motion is an association of human and technology.
Beyond thinking s/he alone is the object moving fast, the human
has become corporeal with the technological object.
As in our automobile example, the superior physical power in

the structure becoming corporeal, the motor, while hiding behind
the interface identified as the chassis, also creates the main
propulsive power of the system. Today, changing from shape to
shape, the mentioned interface has made this propulsive force,
the motor, a part of our daily lives.
In his example concerning the use of automobiles given in his

book titled "The Whale and the Reactor", Langdon Winner
discusses, in addition to the advantages the automobile provides
like moving with speed, the responsibilities imposed on us due
to the rules of use to obey and also discusses the consequently
emerging set of disadvantages.
The driver, although he has the potential to move

much faster, is constrained by the enclosed space
of automobile, the physical dimensions of the
highway, and the rules of the road.[..] Since the
first rule of good driving is to avoid hitting things,
66 Data-Reality
the immediate environment of the motorist

becomes a field of obstacles.38
Beyond its specialty of being the transportation vehicle of the

modern age, the automobile could add formal differences to the
body as an esthetical phenomenon as also analyzed by the
famous director David Cronenberg in his 1996 movie named
Crash. In the Crash movie, the character, James Ballard,
encounters a subculture – after causing a serious traffic accident
– that takes mixed pleasure from having sex and having a traffic
accident. For this subculture that he has not known before, the
automobile, with its never-ending, tireless technological
structure, has transformed into a fetish object. The characters in
the movie desire with lust the deformations occurring in their
bodies and the technological accessories embedded into their
bodies after these accidents that are consciously planned and
experienced with their performance dimensions. Especially, the
Gabrielle character played by Rosanna Arquette in the movie,
while barely standing up feet with all the various metallic
supports controlling a big part of her body, her emerging
differentiated body represents form-wise a statue sculpted by
accident performances.
Throughout history, in addition to the advanced technological

actors entreated in the movie mentioned in the example above,
people have, with various simple accessories, produced objects
transfiguring their bodies with differences in an esthetical
meaning. In this respect, the “Neck Ring” used in Africa
especially is a very uncanny accessory. Padaung women coming
from the Kayan tribe start putting rings around their necks at a
very early age and attain esthetical results in their advanced ages
in forms against normal human anatomy. The used accessory
forms the body structure one-on-one and changes the visual
form of the body.
38 Winner, Langdon (1988) The Whale and the Reactor : A

Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, The
University of Chicago Press, p8
Although as an object being embedded into the body and adding

a certain feature / characteristic to the body, RFID (Radio
Frequency Identification Detection) implant applications have
been developed very currently, due to a set of Cyborg
expansions they have formed an interesting field for
embodiment. The first recorded RFID Implant application has
been tried in 1998 by the British scientist Kevin Warwick. By
means of the RFID tag surgically implanted into his hand,
Warwick, through pre-defined permissions, can open various
doors without using keys, just by pulling his hand over the
receiver antenna.
Although humans have, until now, been fairly

successful in evolutionary terms, we are restricted
in what we can do. We have distinct physical
limitations. However, technology has been
employed to help us out — to lift heavy loads, to
carry out tasks repetitively and accurately, to fly.
With only five basic senses at our disposal, we are
also very limited in how we sense the world.
Again, technology has helped us, providing us
with information in the ultraviolet, infrared and H-
ray spectra.39
The Technologic Embodiment expression could be interpreted

as the combining of technological actors with the human body to
transform into another synergical body. The embodiment of
technology and human within a technological or human body
reveals a situation concerning the metamorphosis of the natural
human structure existing with the form it has come to earth.
After being born, while maturing over time, people quickly try
to adapt to these mentioned transformations. For example, a set
of traffic rules and restrictions enable individuals to apply as
intended the use of automobiles, a phenomenon with both
39 Warwick, Kevin (2004) I, Cyborg : University of Illinois

Press, p2
68 Data-Reality
technological and social aspects. People cannot practice their

free, pedestrian-state norms that they are accustomed to in traffic
as a driver.
Today, people are creating the links of the relationship they will
establish with a set of interfaces they encounter in technological
embodiment scenarios. As in the hammer example, while
sometimes it comes to an extremely simple state, the interface
structure, as in the automobile example may sometimes exhibit
differences within general standards. Standardized features
existing in many automobiles in use today like the shape of the
steering wheel, installation of the pedals, the sitting setup
allowing the driver to look forward ahead inhabit fundamental
working principles users could easily adapt to. The technological
embodiment relationship established with any automobile does
not create significant differences when another automobile
model is used. However, after the Industrial Revolution during a
period when metamorphosis was transformed into an alluring
value, interfaces with varying structures as fast as possible were
established.
Mobile phones, the popularizing actors of the Information Age,

present an important opportunity for this metamorphosis thanks
to their continuously changeable interfaces. Beyond people’s
physical relations with their bodies, the mobile phone has turned
into an object we have embodied with its different functions.
While they keep under record users’ daily appointments, smart
phones carry extensive information including where precisely
the user is on earth. Hosting many functions within, the
technological embodiment with mobile phones is experienced at
a cognitive level. When we open the phonebook, we can easily
access many telephone numbers that we can possibly not keep in
memory, or when we open the calculator, we can do any
arithmetical operation quickly; furthermore, in some advanced
mobile phone models, we can even encounter personal
assistantship services with voice recognition feature.
Radically influencing our communication customs with the

individuals in society, mobile phones have become daily
extensions of us that we can never separate from ourselves. A
psychological disorder called ‘Nomophobia’, abbreviated from

“no-mobile-phone-phobia” and also known as the fear of losing
one’s mobile phone, has emerged. In a study carried out by the
English research company YouGov, it has been revealed that
%85 of mobile phone users – which could easily be called as a
major part – experience Nomophobia. It is apparently evident
from this example that a technological advance has inoculated
the users with a daily habit and by not remaining distant to this
new custom; users have started to experience various behavioral
disorders.
The embodiment relationship we have established with mobile

phones is beyond the physical interaction experienced through
the keys or the touch pad of the phone; rather, due to its way of
working where many of our cognitive functions are undertaken
as tasks, it has normalized itself such that within the human-
technology relationship it has transformed into a transparent
layer. Considering the existing embodiment relationships during
technology-human meeting, Don Ihde uses the following
definition;
I may describe these relations as embodiment

relations, relations in which the machine displays
some kind of partial transparency in that it itself
does not become objectified or thematic, but is
taken into my experiencing of what is other in the
World.40
While technological embodiment, as a gateway structuralizing

the human-technology relationship, is a door where people
experience technology; likewise, it also emerges as a door where
technology experiences people. Considered as an extension of
people, technology remains in the target of a desire to become
perfect and to progress of an impulse with whose existence
40 Ihde, Don (1979) Technics and Praxis - D.Reidel

Publishing Company, p8
70 Data-Reality
humankind has never been content with and hence it

continuously changes the structure of life and the definitions
with which we build the world. Progressively wrapping itself up
into a character transforming into a life form, Technology
manipulates its purpose of existence as a concept revealed to
provide benefits for humankind. In his book titled “The Shape of
Things”, while defining machines as ‘stupid’ Vilem Flusser
states as follows;
Machines are simulated organs of the human

body. The lever, for example, is an extended arm.
It increases the ability of the arm to lift and
ignores all the other functions the arm has. It is
more 'stupid' than the arm, but it therefore reaches
further and lifts heavier loads.41
As a current example for the machine’s handling of tasks – that

the human cannot achieve with body functions – as an extension
of the body as mentioned above by Flusser and the
magnification of the human capabilities thereof, the Amplified
Mobility Platform (AMP) suit in the 2009 movie Avatar written
and directed by James Cameron could be illustrated. The
technologically advanced AMP device controlled by a human
amplifies the power and mobility of its user and at the same time
protects its user from possible external threats. Composed of a
mechanism made up of two arms, two legs and a body into
which the human body could fit in, the control of the device is
thus achieved through a one-to-one relationship by the motion of
the legs and the arms. Inside the suit, the user can feel on her /
his own body everything sensed by the suit externally and by
this means, by controlling her / his own body, indirectly, through
one-to-one mapped functions, she / he could control the device.
41 Flusser, Vilem (2009), The Shape of Things : A Philosophy

of Design - Reaktion Books Ltd, p51
The idea of a device, in Avatar movie, assisting its user and

magnifying her / his body functions has not just remained as a
fantastical object existing in the movie. Various studies have
been performed long since on technological assistants serving
people with different applications today.
Under the heading of Assistant Technologies, especially some

Japanese companies have made significant progresses in the
field of developing devices for assisting people with walking.
Being still in prototyping phase, the Walking Assist Device
carries the load of human body while the user is standing or in
motion while walking and provides advantages on walking to
the user.
Assistant applications magnifying body functions and

transforming the human into a character with superior powers
are progressing towards being a natural part of people’s daily
lives. While the human uses her / his association with
technology sometimes as a part of her / his body, it could be said
that by means of the human body, the machine, on the other
hand, establishes a mutualism form living through a new
body. With the fast movement capability it provides, the
motorcycle, being an apparatus in which human body moves in
total harmony with machine, reveals an association with a
complementary relationship. Especially during the use of geared
motorcycles, due to the necessity of using forward brake with
right hand, clutch with left hand, gear with left foot and rear
brake with right foot, the body, with all of its major limbs can
achieve the control of the machine. In order to stay in balance
during motion, the motorcycle requires a skilful driver. The
balance system enabling it to maintain equilibrium on two
wheels keeps the machine upright entirely as a skill of the
human. How can a human remain in equilibrium on two wheels?
It is almost impossible for a motorcycle driver to express the
reasons for maintaining balance through words. The same
situation is valid for the rational expression of how we can stand
upright on two feet although it seems less complicated because it
is an activity we perform every day. Taking the expression we
cannot tell behind riding a bicycle as a topic, in their book titled
72 Data-Reality
“Mind Over Machine” Hubert L. Dreyfus and Stuart E. Dreyfus

state the following;
You can ride a bicycle because you possess

something called "know-how", which you
acquired from practice and sometimes painful
experience. The fact that you can't put what you
have learned into words means that know-how is
not accessible to you in the form of facts and
rules. If it were, we would say that you "know
that" certain rules produce proficient bicycle
riding.42
While the mutual relationships we establish with technological

devices develop over time through a language we could define
as the interface, in this process, in the time elapsed until the
phase we acquire expertise on using the device, rather than the
functional characteristics of the device, its structural content and
object properties emerge as more significant. In the first moment
we encounter a bicycle – assuming we have no prior information
about the topic and accessing the bicycle object with an
approach lacking prejudices – we take the solid properties of the
bicycle under examination. As a phase before comprehending its
functional characteristics, our trying to identify and understand
the object by checking its various sections with our limbs is
inviting us to discover slowly the other properties pertaining to
the object. Although by sitting on the saddle of the bicycle, by
placing our feet on the pedals and by rotating the pedals with a
certain body movement, we have taken the first step in
mechanical association towards moving with the bicycle,
concerning the keeping of the bicycle in balance, a definite
experience process is required. When, at the end of all the
mentioned processes, the person has reached a level where she /
42 Dreyfus, Hubert L., Dreyfus Stuart E. (1988) Mind Over

Machine : The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in
the Era of the Computer, The Free Press, p16
he has mastered riding a bicycle, she / he has now ended her /

his questioning relevant to the building stones of the bicycle.
Easily adapting herself / himself to the different bicycles she / he
encounters, the rider only faces again the operating mechanism
of the bicycle or the physicality of the parts constituting the
structure when there occurs a problem concerning the use of the
bicycle. After starting to be used proficiently, the technological
structure of the bicycle becomes transparent and through the
relationship established through the benefit of the device, the
human-bicycle association transforms into a single body.
Normally using her / his legs and feet to walk, the human uses
legs quite differently – with respect to walking – and by using
the pedals of the bicycle in a sitting position, she / he progresses.
While a moving bicycle user cruises without thinking her / his
leg movements during a ride, the movements she / he abandons
thinking about have become intuitive and have become a part of
the operating mechanism of the device.
Spare Body Parts
The human body is a phenomenon embodying numerous organs,

tissues and systems, all in communication and harmony and
whose obscurities are still being researched. A great majority of
it made up water; this strange structure is described as a
flawlessly working machine according to a technological point
of view.
However, finding spare parts for this perfect machine is no easy

task. Many fields of the body are still waiting to be discovered
and the science of medicine can only access very limited
information considering the working structure of the body.
Although they utilize all resources technology-wise, the
technological devices simulating real organs can only be
successful at a limited level.
Such fascinatingly flawless looking operating system of the

human body could sometimes fail by natural or unnatural
reasons. As a result of the separation of a part of the body from
the body, the topic is touched upon by three fundamental
74 Data-Reality
approaches today.
The first approach is the removal from the body of the defective
structure. For example, although a secretary gland with
excrement and increment functions, the pancreas, when required
for medical reasons, could be removed by surgery from the body
up to rates reaching %90. Certainly, it is quite possible to lose
body parts without defects due to an accident. A person losing
arms and legs could maintain her / his biological life within
limited resources.
The second approach is the transplant into the body, instead of

the defective structure, a section taken from her/his body or from
another organism. Known as organ transplant, current
developments on this topic are very promising. Today, even face
transplants are becoming common. Unfortunately, organ
transplants do not always result positively. For achieving
biological success in organ transplant, the two tissues coming
together need to be compatible and the desired result may not
always be possible. In addition to its biological processes, with
its social dimensions also, organ transplant is still continuing to
be a topic of interest for societies.
The third approach is the embedding of an unnatural object –

instead of the defective organ – that would carry out the
functions of the defective organ. Biomechanics technologies
have enabled accelerated progresses in this field. For example,
although they offer limited solutions, biomechanical arms
produced with technological resources have been a significant
source of hope. Even the most advanced artificial arm study
achieved in our day cannot come up with the sensitivity and the
ergonomical structure of the hand technically. If we accept the
body as a technological machine, the artificial organs we bring
together with its structure need to inhabit control properties in
addition to their self-contained mechanical functions. What is
desired in artificial arm studies is the control, through messages
generated by the brain, of hand and arm movements.
At this point, while establishing the main link for

communication, the yet-unsolved mind-body relationship could
be a showstopper for researchers. The brain is a closed field with

very limited information acquired on its structure and mind
functions. The science of medicine, using a deductive approach,
has made an analysis of the state and discovered a set of
tendencies when the body is conducting its internal
communication with electrical signals and could comment
depending on the state of electrical signals. When a decision is
made in the brain, considered as the central system, with
electrical signals this decision could be transmitted to the
relevant section and thus, as in the example of arm or hand, the
body could be controlled.
Then how could a biomechanical arm being managed with direct

brain control? If we can imagine a printed circuit board with
fine, intricate electronic paths, the present situation in current
applications is not very different from this comparison. Due to
her / his habit of use from before, a person who has lost her / his
arm due to an accident inhabits in her / his brain impulses
pertaining to control the hand. But since the arm does not exist
now, the messages transmitted from the brain remain
unanswered. When the changes physiologically by the brain in
the muscle structures are examined, various behavior patterns
emerge. For example, when the person wants to move his thumb
in this hand, the message departing from the brain excites a set
of muscles and the physical behavior in the muscles resulting
from this excitation is recorded. Yet, behavior patterns gathered
in a pool of probabilities form a limited number of structures and
lead to the result over a set of ready scenarios. The natural
human arm that is not biomedical operates flawlessly within
endless probabilities with respect to the artificial one. The
artificial biomedical arm we apply instead of the natural one in
its absence establishes lines with definite routes in the thought
concretization practices of the mind. While the person tries to
learn how to control the biomedical arm he has just been
introduced to, the arm interprets the messages received from the
brain consulting the probabilities in the behaviors library and
proceeds to the required activity. The mind practice operating
through a discrete and discontinuous structure that it is not
familiar with. This behavioral state is not very different from the
concretization behavior of the person trying to scribe as words
76 Data-Reality
the thoughts of the mind. A thought appearing in the mind firstly

emerges as a phenomenon that the person should define to
himself. The thought is transformed, as in the example of
artificial arm, into a physical action through electrical signals by
means of mechanical accessories.
In addition to performing the daily needs of their users, the

biomechanical devices replacing various organs could also offer
some unnatural advantages in some situations. Although the
South American athlete Oscar Pistorius has lost his legs below
his knees due to medical reasons, by means of the carbon fiber
prosthesis embedded he has been famous as “the fastest legless
thing” and it has even been a debate for authorities whether his
artificial legs have provided him too much advantage over the
other athletes or not. His participation to the 2008 Summer
Olympics has not been allowed, but later the applied ban has
been removed stating that he does not have a net advantage over
the athletes with natural legs.
Another person who uses artificial legs and who uses the
situation she is in as an advantage is Aimee Mullins. Mullins is a
pretty colorful personality with many abilities like being a
national athlete, professional actress and model. With her stance
against the definition of “being disabled”, she has impressed
many people with her thoughts. According to Mullins, the
individuals who are defined as disabled are actually differently-
enabled. Beyond being politically incorrect, the concept of
disability is a dangerous ascription since it sets in advance the
state of the indicated individual in the society. In her speech for
TED where she has demonstrated twelve pairs of artificial legs,
she says as follows;
So people that society once considered to be

disabled can now become the architects of their
own identities and indeed continue to change
those identities by designing their bodies from a
place of empowerment. And what is exciting to
me so much right now is that by combining
cutting-edge technology -- robotics, bionics --
with the age-old poetry, we are moving closer to

understanding our collective humanity. 43
With the biomedical solutions offered to people in the field of

medicine, users can have advantages far beyond their abilities.
With the resources they offer, our artificial organs that transform
into a part of our bodies indirectly point to the fact that we need
to worry less about our bodies. The point reached by the science
of medicine with technological possibilities is very assuring for
many people. As a concrete result, with respect to the past,
people have now less fear about high speed in traffic. In addition
to the safety advantages provided by the automobile technology,
when the saved lives through the treatments at hospitals are also
considered, traffic accidents do not scare people now as they
used to before. While technology offers a set of freedoms to the
individuals in the society in a biological sense, as a result of
these, the perspectives of the individuals on life are changing
parallelly.
Technology inside Humans
If enough spare parts are provided, could the human body which
is likened to a machine live for very long years? The science of
medicine, by producing advanced level solutions for organ
transplant, keeps surprising people every passing day on
achieving the impossible. In the light of artificial heart research
made on the heart – carrying vital value and being one of the
most important organs of the body mechanism – the first
artificial heart transplant has been succeeded by the transplant of
the artificial heart designed by Dr. Paul Winchell to the patient
named Barney Clark. Continuing his life with the artificial heart
made up totally of a technological mechanism, the patient has
closed his eyes to life after living for 112 days. Although
artificial organs temporarily succeed in increasing the life
43 http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_
aesthetics.html (Retrieved 01.05.2012)
78 Data-Reality
quality of people, there is an unavoidable situation in human life

called aging. Over time, the human body ages and loses health.
Aging is the last process before death resulting with the ending
of life. When criteria like the resources offered by the science of
medicine and raising of the life quality of people are considered,
it is foreseen that the human life gradually extends and that in
the future, living for hundred years will be an average value. In
research conducted, several evidences showing that the average
human life is extending have been obtained.
According to the Life Expectancy in the United States 44 report of

CRS Report for Congress published in 2006, between the years
1900-1902, the average human life in the USA has been
determined as 49.2 years and this value is 47.9 years for men
and 50.7 years for women. When the statistical table presented
in the report is studied, it is observed that over time the average
life expectancy values in the USA have increased much. While
the average human life increases in 2003 to 77.5 years, in men
this average is 74.8 years and in women it is 80.1 years. By
means of the advances in the science of medicine, many fatal,
epidemical diseases like cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis which has
risked the lives of people throughout history has been obviated.
However, despite all these developments, many new diseases are
emerging also.
There are three main health problems that threat the human
being today. The first one of these is the AIDS (Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome) which is a contagious disease
resulting in death due to the damage it causes in the immune
system of the people. Actually the disease is not fatal, it ends the
life of people indirectly. The body, whose immune system
corrupts, is unable to save itself from any disease as it can’t fight
against the disease. According to the number that World Health
organization provided in 2009, there are 33.4 million AIDS
patients in the world and 2.7 million people get HIV disease
each year. The first AIDS case that we know is detected in USA
44 http://aging.senate.gov/crs/aging1.pdf
in 1981 but it is thought that the disease have spread from

Africa. Unfortunately 70% of the HIV positive cases are
detected in Africa. In this context the statistical scheme, related
to prolonging the life span of the people which is applicable for
America, is not valid for many African countries unfortunately.
According to the data acquired in Sub-Sahara Africa, there are
22.4 million AIDS patients. Swaziland, Botswana and Lesotho
are the leading countries that the disease is seen most
commonly. The information below is provided related to this
subject in United Nations Development Programme 2010 - The
Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development
report;
The decline in several Sub-Saharan African

countries can be clearly linked to the HIV
epidemic. Since the 1980s AIDS has slashed life
expectancy in Southern Africa, where adult HIV
prevalence rates still exceed 15 percent. In the
most affected countries life expectancy is now
below 51 years; in Lesotho it stands at 46 similar
to that in England before the Industrial
Revolution.45
In 1980’, AIDS began to spread all over the world especially in
the Africa. The increasing urbanization, the long-distance
travels’ getting easier, acceleration for the migrations, drug uses’
becoming widespread can be counted as the main reasons for
this. When we investigate these reasons, it can be said that
almost all of them are based on technological factors. The
communities are forced to prefer migrating to the cities by
abandoning their local businesses such as agriculture and
stockbreeding with the rising of industrialization and it’s getting
more valuable. The industry attracted the people towards itself
like a magnet and made people become raw materials for itself
45 http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Complete_
reprint.pdf (03.05.2012)
80 Data-Reality
by getting the people it reached accept that an easy and well

level of living is reached under the roof of modernization.
Heidegger states related to the people’s becoming a present
resource that;
As soon as what is unconcealed no longer

concerns man even as object, but does so, rather,
exclusively as standing-reserve, and man in the
midst of objectlessness is nothing but the orderer
of standing-reserve, then he comes to the very
brink of a precipitous fall; that is, he comes to the
point where he himself will have to be taken as
standing-reserve.46
In the historical period known as modern colonization, countries

like Spain, Portugal, France, England and Netherlands exploited
the lands in various regions of the world in order to develop their
own civilizations. Beyond being its reason, the civilization
which is in a hurry to use the present sources that Heidegger
pointed and which breathes through technology, became the
audience for the negative state of Africa in the present world.
The second disease threatening the World is cancer. Cancer is

known as the growth and increase of the cells uncontrolled and
abnormally as a result of the DNA corruption happening in the
cells. Unfortunately what we know about the cancer or the
success that the treatment methods achieved against the disease
are fairly insufficient. In a healthy body, the cells multiply in a
controlled way to renew the died cells or to repair the injured
parts. But the cancer cells multiply in an uncontrolled way and
form the tumors by gathering. When we count the main reasons
of the cancer, technological factors have a great role just like
they do in the AIDS example. Beside the factors like radioactive,

p26
ultraviolet rays, contacts with some chemical substances also

make up the reasons of the cancer. In the article of A. Rosalie
David and Michael R. Zimmermann named “Cancer: an old
disease, a new disease or something in between?”47, they
investigated the historical background of the cancer and reached
some results. According to the authors, it can be said that one of
the reasons that there were less cancer cases in the past is that
the average lifetime of human is increased in the present world.
It is seen in the palaeopathological studies that the elite class in
the Egyptian Civilization period lives for 40-50 years and the
number for the non-elite class is 25-30. Factors like
complications happening during birth and contagious diseases
have a great role for the average to be such low. But when the
bone cancer which is seen younger people is investigated, it
caused questioning the effect of the suggested increase in
lifetime in the spreading of the disease compared to the past. We
see that the increase in usage of the carcinogenic substances in
the daily life is an important reason in the proliferation of the
cancer. While the technology causes to the proliferation of the
carcinogenic toxic substances with the industrialization effort
which improves with an uncontrollable pace, it also tries to
make progress in finding solutions to cure the disease by forcing
the limits of the technology. It can be said that prolonged life
time of the humans mathematically increase the risks of disease,
there is no doubt that a number of developments that technology
put forward without questioning increase the risks of cancer
seriously.
The third danger to threat the human health is obesity. Obesity is

a disease defined as the increase of the fat used as the backup
source for energy in the body to an extent that can harm the
human health. Among its basic reasons, there are excessive
consumption of food, insufficiently made physical activity and
genetic factors. According to World Health Organization, the
obesity in the world has doubled since 1980 and according to the
47 Nature Reviews Cancer 10, 728-733 (October 2010)

82 Data-Reality
results acquired; the obese people have more risks of death than
the non-obese ones.
During the past 20 years, there has been a

dramatic increase in obesity in the United States
and rates remain high. More than one-third of U.S.
adults (35.7%) and approximately 17% (or 12.5
million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19
years are obese.48
When our subject is the things that technology brought to our

daily habits and the things it took away, it is possible to acquire
a number of causation relationships. There are two basic
criticism points about that the technology causes obesity. First of
these is that the widespread technology use presents people the
activities which are mostly done by sitting. Especially the state
of staying in a stable position before the screen causes various
standing disorders and when we think about the time that we
stay stable, a number of psychological and sociological
problems come out as well.
It is doubtless that people spent more time outside before the

computers and televisions become a means of entertainment.
While, especially for children, the game is all about a number of
activities that they do together with their friends outside, the
computer games rising as an alternative almost completely
removed this phenomenon in today’s world. When looked at the
statistics, it can be seen that the rate to watch TV in England and
America has reached an average of 28 hours a week. 49 When the
case is the computer use, way higher numbers can be seen.
According to the study named “Generation M2: Media in the
Lives of 8-18 Years Olds” of Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, which
48 http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/facts.html (Retrieved
04.05.2012)
49 http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_tel_vie-media
-television-viewing (Retrieved 04.05.2012)
is published in March 2005, it is seen in the study carried out on

the school kids between the ages of 8 and 18 in the United States
of America that an average kid is exposed to media for 8.5
hours.50
The screen addiction syndrome beginning with the use of

television reached to the peak by the computer screens and
mobile screens’ getting widespread. The meeting and
communication fact that provides the socialization of the
individuals changed in terms of its ways due to the virtual
alternatives such as Facebook and Twitter. The social media
adopted by large masses become an environment that the users
spend a serious amount of their daily time. Now the individuals
in the society go out of their homes less often and prefer
maintaining their social relationships with the other people
before the screen. While various team sports activities like
football and basketball are replaced by the computer games,
facts like being a part of the whole are rasped day by day.
As the result of the time spent mostly before the computers,

physically serious health problems are seen in the computer
users as well. The condition of a young person whose leg is
amputated due to the motionlessness for sitting before the
computer shows the seriousness of the matter. Back pain and
carpal tunnel syndrome are seen often in the computer users.
When thought of all these conditions, it is obviously seen to
what extent the screen addiction takes people away from their
physical exercise habits.
Albert Borgman talks about how the technology changed daily

activities of the people in his article named “Focal things and
Practices”. According to Borgman, focal things are the activities
that positively affect the living accommodation of the people
and require effort and labor to achieve. Running activity and
eating culture as a family are told as examples to the subject.
50 http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/generation-m-media
-in-the-lives-of-8-18-year-olds-report.pdf (Retrieved
04.05.2012)
84 Data-Reality
The Family dinner is a traditional phenomenon. The preparation

made before the food cooked at home and behavior during the
eating action form the parts of eating together with the family.
According to Borgman, eating is not cooking and consuming
opposite to the fast-food habits. It is a social ritual that gathers
the family and that interfamilial conversations happened.
However, fast food is an action that doesn’t include a focal
understanding and that commodified eating. Unfortunately fast
food has widespread throughout the world recently and
eventually caused obesity. Increased consumption of processed
food is pointed as the second basic reason of the obesity. The
fast food is the most significant factor that causes problems in
this matter. Due to easily-reachable foods, people meet their
need to eat mostly with fast food in order to spend less time. As
the time to prepare food is decreased thanks to technology,
people can reach food much more easily. And fast food portions
have got bigger throughout the years. While the cold drinks
given in McDonald’s in 1950 is 250 ml, it get up to 1 litre today
and a portion of fried potatoes has tripled. Many diseases such as
cardiovascular diseases sleep disorders, type 2, diabetes,
cholesterol and joint problems have risen as the result of the
obesity. When we consider the diseases that obesity causes,
people lose their healthy lives due to the indirect effects of the
technology.
Cloning, Copying, Pasting
Is everything consisted of something? To split the whole into its

constituents and to try to define the complementaries that form
the structure until they are independent from each other are the
basic methods of analytical thought. The constituents that form
the parts and the relationship network among them reveal lots of
phenomena that we aren’t aware and make us perceive a
systematized structure. In the studies about what the basic unit
of the matter is, it is assumed that a matter is formed by other
matters through the limited quantitative observations done over
the assumptions.
The smallest particle that can be reached by assuming the finite

series came out theoretically in the analysis to split into space
dimensionally decreasing parts. The word atom comes from the
Greek “atomos” which means indivisible and uncuttable. The
indivisible smallest thing concepts that ancient Greek and Hindu
philosophy has proposed long before scientifically proved later
by the development of the science. But the matter that the atom
is the smallest thing becomes debatable by the founding of sub-
atomic particles. The system model that accepts that the world
only consists of the atoms can’t go beyond being a quantitative
phenomenon. Alternative thoughts for many phenomena that we
can’t define or can’t explain the reasons today have existed
throughout the history and these thoughts keep being developed.
However the human being was full of beans on the extremes that
it discovered the existence of the atom scientifically and made
terrible experiments that force the system. As the science met
the atom, the idea to use the atom as a weapon was put forward
and the atom began to be used as a mass destruction weapon.
Unfortunately it caused massacres for huge masses and left
permanent damage in the history of humanity. According to the
information that the website named Atomarchive.com gives,
135.000 people in Hiroshima and 64.000 people in Nagazaki
were passed away all of a sudden with the explosion of the
atomic bomb that United States of America used against Japan
in the World War II. So many people’s death at a stroke revealed
the gigantic size and danger of the energy that atom reveals. This
result is not only shameful but also terrible for the sake of
science and technology whatever the reasons to this are.
According to Paul Virilo, the tragedy period in the science
started with the atomic bomb. Moreover, the human being keeps
revolting against the nature with the thought that it is the only
ruler of the world. Virilo says in his speech named “Why do
men love technology?” that;;
We have entered the era of the tragedy of science.

With the atom bomb, with the IT bomb - the two
are linked incidentally - and in particular with the
genetic bomb. The IT bomb helped decode the
86 Data-Reality
human genome and therefore the possibility of

transhuman genetics. The illusion is being a
creator and not a pro-creator.51
As we moved away from the concept of being lively when the

material concretion at an atomic extent is reached through the
analytic thought that was set off with the enquiry of what the
constituent of the human is, the concept of cell as a biological
definition came out. The cell is the smallest living unit in the
living organisms. A normal human being has 10 trillion cells.
The word “cell” comes from the Latin word “cellula” which
means the small room. We can say for the cells that they are the
atomic units of the living organisms. The oosperm formed from
the moment of pollination of the ovo in the uterus, which
provides the biological existence of the human, starts growing
by multiplying with its splitting. Even though it is seen rarely,
some living organisms being born after pollination can be born
as maternal twins. The two living organism being born have
many features in common besides being each other’s biological
copies. Alongside being an important issue to discuss in the
science, actually the copying (cloning) issue continues naturally
on earth as seen in the maternal twins. But the people’s
technological trial in cloning is a trial to take the nature under
control as Heidegger points out.
What is desired by cloning living creatures is to produce copies

that carry the same features of that one original living creature.
The first success in the studies made with the animals in this
matter is achieved by the cloning of the sheep named Dolly in
1996 by the Scotch scientists. The achieved success brought up
the discussion over the subject of human cloning right after
itself. There are various types of this discussion. As the question
that whether cloning is possible medically or not occupies the
scientists, doing it or not ethically became a matter that the
whole world is interested.
51 http://cargoweb.wordpress.com/category/paul-virilio/
According to the view which is proponent of cloning, people

will get rid of many health problems thank to this achievement.
The organs to be procured which will have the same
characteristics with the human source may be easily changed
with the organs that the human source has without having
problems about histocompatibility when necessary. While
cloning, the human race will be perfect by the multiplication of
the genetically healthy individuals and it will be a subject to
create the super human.
The people who are against cloning object to the advantages

stated above for various reasons. The part which is against
cloning says that what is done is to undertake the role of God
and that such intervention to the nature is a very dangerous one.
They argue that despite the cloned body is used as storage for
the transplantation, the clone body itself has its own actual life
and the right to live comes out.
Today cloning is applied as a kind of livestock manufacturing in

the field of stockbreeding in animal cloning farms. According to
the known sources, there hasn’t been any human cloning so far
but it is known that there are scientists like Panayiotis Michael
Zavos and Severino Antonori who are attempting it. There
hasn’t been a certain success in cloning living creatures yet;;
nevertheless the science is paying great effort on this subject.
The existence of the honour and pride of the human being is the
basis of the discussion of whether the human cloning is right or
not. But as Heidegger states, the correctness is a relative
concept. It emerges depending on the situation and conditions.
Saying that human cloning won’t be performed in the future
seems fairly impossible when thought of what humans try
irresponsibly in technological terms and what we eventually
achieve.
If the human is cloned, will the new person have dignity? Can
human cloning understand the human reality as it is a
technological attempt? Immanuel Kant says about the human
dignity, which is one of the hardest definitions to make in human
reality, in his book named “Groundwork for Metaphysics of
Morals” that:
88 Data-Reality
In the realm of ends everything has either a price

or a dignity. What has a price is such that
something else can be put in its place as its
equivalent, by contrast, that which is elevated
above all price, and admits of no equivalent, has a
dignity.52
Kant takes the dignity phenomenon away from materialism and

states that the humans shouldn’t be seen as objects. He says that
the human dignity has an ungiving structure and carries an
internal value. Every human has the freedom to live with its own
desires. It is a question that whether a human organism to be
born through the cloning technique will be considered as a living
creature who experienced the natural process of birth or an
object of production. The objects produced by the humans in the
world turn into objects of the market of which is assessable. But
if it is accepted that the human copy is created as a result of
human manufacturing, the human will turn into an object which
can be valued or destroyed when desired. Technology serves to
conceptual transformation of the human as a value and leads up
to the discussion. The copying activity created the situation that
the original one loses its value by allowing to the production of
many copied ones. So, will the human copying end with a
mechanical production model that Walter Benjamin states in his
article named “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction”? Benjamin says about the reproduction of a work
of art that:
One might generalize by saying: the technique of

reproduction detaches the reproduced object from
the domain of tradition. By making many
reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies
for a unique existence. And in permitting the
reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his
52 Kant, Immanuel - Groundwork for the Metaphysics of

Morals trans Allen W. Yale University Press 2002 p52
own particular situation, it reactivates the object

reproduced.53
The copied human body will commodify the human with a

materialist approach by blurring the single truth of the original
by the copies multiplied by losing its genuineness. The original
body meeting its copy will lose its personality by questioning its
characteristic to be itself and will fall into a conceptual conflict.
We see the written script of such a conflict in the movie “Moon”
that Dane Jones directed in 2009. In the movie, the astronaut
Sam Bell works alone in a space station located on the Moon.
Sam, looking forward to the day he would land back on Earth,
has a serious accident with the vehicle he uses in the area he was
assigned two weeks before the day he would get back to Earth
and the scene ends as the character closes his eyes. When he
opened his eyes, Sam doesn’t remember what happened. But in
the later scenes of the movie, Sam goes back to the area that the
accident happened, sees there is a person inside the vehicle and
takes the injured person to the central station. It gets complicated
when he arrives at the station because the person he took out of
the vehicle is himself. Sam immediately gets that he met his
clone. In the rest of the movie, we see what two conflicting
character experiences. The original copy of the character Sam
lives on Earth and his clones are used for the mission on the
Moon. The movie Moon emphasizes many questions related to
human cloning. Parallel to the commodifying debate that we
stated above, the clones turned into objects that can be destroyed
if necessary. The state of being autonomous which is the basic
principle of the human dignity is taken from the cloned human
beings and their freedom to live is taken under control by others.
Even though the situation seen in the movie creates a pessimist
picture related to the cloning, it can’t be said that it will be
53 Benjamin, Walter (1998)The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction ed William McNeill and Karen S.
Feldman (Continental Philosophy) Blackwell Publishers ,
p245
90 Data-Reality
impossible in the future. The matter of human cloning should be

discussed at a great extent within a scope that everybody
concerned with the matter is included.
The inventions that technology and science brought up – as in

the example of atomic bomb used in World War II – cause the
rise of so damaging consequences instead of providing benefits
when left to the hands of authorities in an uncontrolled way.
Paul Virillo states about the disasters that technological
knowledge may cause that;
According to Aristotle, there is an "accident of

matter" in effect pollution of the air, water, fauna,
etc. [...] But there is other pollution I call
"knowledge pollution", the accident of knowledge.
Knowledge itself, scientific and philosophical
knowledge, is damaged by the success of technical
progress, by the success of performances in all
technical disciplines, whether it is in biology or
space. Just as there's a loss, a depletion of
biodiversity on Earth, there is depletion of geo-
diversity of distances, in earthly space, a loss of
distances of time that allows us to reflect, to think.
This is an accident without parallel the accident of
knowledge.54
In the experiments already done, it is hardly seen that the copies

obtained as a result of the cloning has healthy bodies. The sheep
named Dolly which is the first living creature to have been
cloned successfully could live up to 6 years and died because of
joint problems. Besides the fact that the living creatures obtained
as a result of the experiments have serious physiological
deformations, it is observed that conditions which don’t exist in
the nature normally and don’t have precedents occur in such
54 http://cargoweb.wordpress.com/category/paul-virilio/
creatures. A disaster to be caused in the matter of cloning bring

along the risks which a step back can’t be taken. When the
human is cloned, the concept of personality and the state of
existence will rapidly move towards a chaos which is full of
conflicts with the objectified human structure.
The technology makes the people live the conflicts about

existence through various dimensions with the consequences
that may bring the humanity to an end. Wolfgang Schirmacher
says about the future understanding of the humanity about
existence that;
That man can assert the right to resolve the

contradictions of his existence offensively, and is
thus able to realize the humanity without
humanism, is Hegel’s lesson for the critics of
contemporary society. A future history
encompasses all phenomena, transgresses with the
Second Negation every ontological fixation, and
cultivates above all death. Today, we can say: this
future has already begun, and Hegel with his
dialectic was one of its most surprising
envisioners.55
Post-Human
Is post-humanism a new civilization project where humanity and

technology progress together with silent steps? Running after
progress unceasingly relentlessly, civilization infuses progress at
55 Schirmacher, Wolfgang. "After the Last Judgement – Hegel

as Philosopher of Artificial Life." In: Wolfgang
Schirmacher. Just Living. Philosophy in Artificial Life.
Atropos Press. New York, Dresden.
92 Data-Reality
all levels into the lives psyches of humans, intervening into the
organic life of the human at the centre of its human-centered
structure; hence, as a result of the mentioned interventions some
unnatural differentiations naturally emerge.
As stated before, the human, which turns into a technological

object of design for the increase in the lifetime of human,
technological developments in the artificial organs and the
extreme point that the genetics reach, evolves into species called
post human that has superior qualities by the interventions made
in its organic structure. We can see some examples that
technological developments obtained as a result of various
studies provide benefits to the people through their unforeseen
and different aspects. Ray Kurzweil states about the technology
produced for the handicapped people may lead to other ways to
be used that:
Once a technology is developed to overcome a

disability, there is no way to restrict its use from
enhancing normal abilities, nor would such
restrictions necessarily be desirable. The ability to
control our feelings will be just another one of
those twenty-first-century slippery slopes.56
According to some views, the human species is experiencing the

trans-human period before the post-human period. As stated by
the trans-humanism view, the current point humankind has
reached in its evolutionary process is not yet the culmination
point in evolution. The physical and mental capabilities of the
trans-human are at levels that could be improved by the
resources provided by technology.
56 Kurzweil, Ray (2009) Twenty-First Century Bodies –

Readings in Philosophy of Technology Ed David M. Kaplan
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, p370
Technology, while helping to improve the quality of human life,

also contributes to its development as an organism in the
biological sense. Yet, people subjected to various technological
developments as the trans-humanists defend alienate, in time,
from their original and natural states and they carry the risk of
turning into another species. This new species differentiating
from the human species and emerging as a result of artificial
evolution is called post-human.
While the technological perception commodifies the human with

its rational framing, it may create a number of imitations
between the human and the concepts in its field. For example,
the structure of the computer has very similar features with the
intelligence model of the human. According to the philosophical
theory of computational theory of mind, intelligence is a system
that processes the information and the thoughts are interpreted
by being calculated with the manipulation of the symbols similar
to the computer. When the components of the computer are
examined, we see that the central position of the human brain in
the body and its functions that control the body are considered in
modeling the central processor in the computer.
The rapid developments in the field of computer technology

cause that the computers can’t meet the needs and lose their up-
to-dateness in a very short period of time even in daily use.
While the computer users try to maintain the functionality of the
structure they use by the software updates that they are presented
routinely almost every day, the hardware updates may become
compulsory in time. Updating and improving the structure in
hand turned into a necessity to get the system work. As a parallel
thought, the question whether it is possible to update the
working system of the human intelligence and to improve its
abilities or not became a current research subject for the
technology.
Is it possible to implant a knowledge-processing electronic

hardware to provide various advantages to the human
intelligence? If the human intelligence is materialized and could
be transformed into a duplicable, portable database, could the
capabilities of the human intelligence be improved by the
94 Data-Reality
addition of new data and definition of new functions into the

obtained database? The enabling of a mutual, one-to-one
communication between the technological object and the organic
structure is an extremely important step for the post-humanist
approach.
Although some fantastic views on establishing mutual data

communication between the human mind and hardware have
been put forth, such as whether it is necessary to use a cable
providing access to the brain as shown in the Wachowski
brothers’ movie Matrix first screened in 1999 or whether it could
be achieved through a control device as illustrated in David
Cronenberg’s movie Existenz of the same year, in the science of
medicine, though small, some findings with repeatable
accuracies have been achieved with experimental methods,
regarding a communication to be established with the human
brain.
For example, in the medical treatment method named “Deep

Brain Stimulation (DBS)” by means of the electrical excitations
transmitted through electrodes surgically implanted in the
human skull, success has been obtained for health problems like
Parkinson disease, dystonia and chronic depression.
The behavior of chronic depression patients in response to

electrical excitations when using the electrodes implanted into
the skulls of patients for treating them is very astonishing. When
adjustments are being made through the tuning knobs over the
other hand of the electrodes, over some points on the faces of
these chronic depression patients who have not laughed for
years, smiles can form.
The obtained result has functionalized the relationship of the

human behavior, whose depths remain unexplored yet through a
physical phenomenon within a technological context, to the
brain. The independent distinction of body and mind in the
dualism model proposed by Descartes has now become
questionable by making the behavior of the mind controllable
through an electronic adjustment switch as illustrated in the DBS
example.
As Descartes states in his philosophy of Dualism, although the

mind and the body are significantly separated from each other,
the body works like a machine; the mind, on the other hand, has
a structure transcending matter. Although the communication
point of two concepts like body and mind that are mutually in a
one-to-one relationship, yet spatially remote cannot be
comprehended with its metaphysical dimension, if we progress
along the physical dimension, we could say that this junction
point of communication is tangible. Descartes proposes the
epiphysis (pineal gland) as the corporeal junction point of body
and mind.
The pineal gland is a pine cone shaped gland of

the endocrine system. A structure of
the diencephalon of the brain, the pineal gland
produces several important hormones including
melatonin. Melatonin influences sexual
development and sleep-wake cycles. The pineal
gland is composed of cells called pinealocytes and
cells of the nervous system called glial cells. The
pineal gland connects the endocrine system with
the nervous system in that it converts nerve signals
from the sympathetic system of the peripheral
nervous system into hormone signals.57
According to the definition above, the pineal gland is

considered as a center where the signals generated by the
nervous system are translated and transformed into the secretion
of the relevant hormones and based on the signal In this sense,
as a passing point of any physical information communication
connection with the mind, the pineal gland was proposed to be
an interface. In fact, a connection obtained as such could have
been viewed as the point where meta-physics and materiality
touch each other. Descartes says about the pineal gland that "seat
57 http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/p/pineal-gland.htm
(Retrieved May 8th,2012)
96 Data-Reality
of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed"58
which he predicts is the point that the intelligence and the body
communicates.
The information that the assumptions based on pineal gland

were put forward by other scientists before Descartes is
available. The Greek medical scientist Galen (ca. 130-ca. 210
AD) says that the material of the human soul, which is similar to
the air in terms of weight, is stored in the ventricles, the
locations of which he defined in detail, in the human brain in his
study named On the Usefulness of the Parts of the body.
However, according to Galen, the pineal gland doesn’t control
the communication of the material of the human soul with the
body as it is out of the brain.
In the book named “On the Difference Between Spirit and Soul”
of Qusta ibn Luqa (864-923), it is suggested that a part in the
brain59 which is similar to worm has a structure that moves
upwards and downwards and thus control the flow of the soul
into the body. According to Luqa, people make the memories
flow to the front part of the brain by getting the valve opened by
getting their heads up when they wanted to remember
something. The reason that they bend their heads when they are
deep in thought is to make the thought work in a concentrated
way by closing the valve.
The working principles and structure of the brain functions from

which surprisingly simple deductions are made in the statements
above couldn’t be understood with all its details yet. However
successful results were obtained in the studies made to increase
the abilities of the human brain. With the silicon chip obtained
as a result of the research that Professor Theodore W. Berger did
in Neural Engineering Centre of University of Southern
California, it is possible to carry out the functions of the
58 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/
59 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/
(Retrieved 10.05.2012).
hippocampus which is important for the memory functions in the

brain. 95% of successful results were observed in the researches
done on laboratory mice. Professor Berger states in his interview
in the Wired magazine that it is impossible to understand how
the hippocampus turns the perceived objects into the memory
but by understanding how the information reaching the
hippocampus is normally transformed, the aforesaid neural
prosthesis can undertake this operation and carry it out by
replacing the damaged hippocampus.60
We see the performance booster medicines (doping) that are

designed in the laboratories and produced artificially confront us
as a significant example as they are ways of manipulation
applied over human beings. The performance booster medicines
are some chemical substances, which are currently used
commonly especially by the sportsmen to allow them gain
various advantages in the competitions that they participate by
forcing their physical and mental limits, and the usage of which
is tried to be taken under control by the authorities. Many
international sports organizations prohibited the usage of the
doping due to the fact that sportsmen are exposed to unfair
competition and that they have serious health problems because
of the adverse effects of the doping.
60 http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/
2004/10/65422 (Retrieved 10.05.2012)
98 Data-Reality
Jacques Derrida says in his interview "The Rhetoric of Drugs"61

that the drug use may negatively affect the natural life of the
human in the era of biotechnology and questions the necessity to
discuss the ethical aspects of it along with the unfair competition
that is created by the physical advantages that performance
boosting methods, which are used in the sports to gain more
advantage, allow. He gives the example that it is unethical for
the woman athlete’s who, by getting pregnant before the
competitions, to use the effects, which the hormonal changes in
their bodies reveal, as an advantage for performance and says
that such condition ignores the fact that there is the matter of
human in the essence of the sports.
While technology could transport humankind into the post-

human level with instrumentalist treatments made later on the
human body, it also seeks ways of ascending humans to post-
humans, at more primeval levels, through treatments carried out
at the genetic level where the core organic information of
humankind is coded.
It is possible to meet today various genetically modified living

beings. Randy Lewis, Professor of Genetics from the Utah State
University, inspired by the value of silk produced by a special
spider species, has applied the genes taken from this spider
species to goats and he has achieved to obtain this silk in
abundance in the milk of these goats. Although this genetically
modified goat does not exhibit any physiological anomalies,
analysis carried out on the milk reveals that the silk produced by
the spider is abundantly present in the milk. By this means, the
valuable silk could be separated from the goat milk and could be
produced easily and in greater amounts.
The field called synthetic biology and in which the biology and
technology do researches together becomes rapidly widespread
61 www.armario.cl/Biblioteca/Autores/ABCD/Derrida/
Derrida - The Rhetoric of Drugs.doc JACQUES DERRIDA
WITH AUTREMENT TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL
ISRAEL (Retrieved 11.05.2012)
throughout the world and creates a significant market for itself.

It is seen that 148.6 billion hectares of field is processed all over
the world when we look at the production numbers of Biotech
crops.62 Natural and not chemically intervened foods, which are
similar to the past ones and tend to be forgotten, that appear
today with the name of organic foods took their place on the
shelves in the markets as alternatives for the genetically
modified foods.
In addition to the development of production models for food,

synthetic biology also makes studies on achieving progress on
human physiology. Recent advances in Synthetic Neurobiology,
derived from synthetic biology, regarding how the brain works
are extremely overwhelming.
A special protein structure encapsulated around the neurons in

the brain can generate electrical signals when light falls on it
hence activating the enveloped neurons. In laboratory tests
performed, Ed Boyden from the MIT Media Lab Synthetic
Neurobiology working group has brought light-sensitive protein
structures embedded in the related places of the brains of mice to
active or passive states using light and he has been able to
control the behavior of mice with the resulting series of
electrical excitations.
This situation reveals that control at a much larger scale will be

possible, as different zones in the brain of mice are understood
better. While claiming, in his TED speech titled "A Light Switch
for Neurons", that with the method of Synthetic Neurobiology it
is possible to communicate with the brain through binary code,
Ed Boyden states that as the information in the brain is decoded,
it will transform into a downloadable structure. What should be
questioned here is whether the human brain could be defined
with a digital structure or not.
The interpretation of the system of operation of the brain in the

digital field will, contrary to the analog structure, put forward a
62 http://chartsbin.com/view/578 (Retrieved 11.05.2012)

100 Data-Reality
discrete form of expression with distinct divisions. The

transformation of emotions and thoughts into algorithmic,
quantitative values will consequently cause incomplete
characterizations. There are many questions left unanswered,
awaiting solutions considering the human thought system.
In the studies developed to intervene in the human physiology

and behavior, the human being is moving from the point it
reached in consequence of its revolution to another point. All the
effort paid to perfect the human is a product of the development
effort that the human paid for its own sake. Even though it
hasn’t been proven yet, it is a puzzle that the experiments done
on the laboratory mice in laboratories or also done on human
beings or not. Many illegal applications like drug traffic and
human smuggling confront us as unpreventable conditions even
though there are prohibitions of the authorities which are carried
out by the governments. Today, there occur various examples
that the illegal entities called organ mafias continue their
activities with an attitude that ignores the life and dignity of the
human.
While the conditions to live together are tried to be exposed to

the people by the rules and limitations which are generally
recorded in the written texts like laws and directives, the ethical
values, that make the people who they are, are rasped and
ignored due to the ambition of capital. If needed to talk through
a realist scheme, the successful results in the project post human
of the technology creates new chances for the terrorist activities
which seek opportunities. When the successful results, that the
illegal organizations which aren’t visible by the society may
gain in human cloning or creating the perfect human behind
closed doors, turn into goods which are easily available and
purchasable by the potential clients, it is inevitable for the
consequences that the ethical phenomena aren’t questioned.
The people today, before the written laws and depending on

defined conditions, already have the freedom to end the lives of
the fetuses in consequence of the complications detected in the
course of pregnancy by the advanced imaging methods of the
medicine like ultrasound and genetic tests. Moreover, even
though the abortion is an officially accepted operation by the

written laws in various societies, the opinions about when a
thing is alive and the ideas about a living creature’s right to live
still cause various debates within the frame of ethical thoughts.
Opposite to the publicly accepted legal applications on the basis
of laws, illegal tragic applications related to the abortion are still
unfortunately met in the society. Despite the punitive actions’
aversiveness at a point, the imponderable understanding of the
people about being ethical is an underlying factor for this issue.
It is an issue to discuss to what extent the laws against human
cloning are disincentive. According to the declaration of
Universal Declaration on Human Genome and Human Rights
signed on 11th November 1997 by UNESCO, human cloning
can’t even be discussed in the cases that harm the human
dignity. This situation is explained as below according to the
Article 11;
Practices which are contrary to human dignity,

such as reproductive cloning of human beings,
shall not be permitted. States and competent
international organizations are invited to co-
operate in identifying such practices and in taking,
at national or international level, the measures
necessary to ensure that the principles set out in
this Declaration are respected.63
The issue keeps its subjective side as seen above and other
opinions related to the human cloning couldn’t get cleared with
the certain provisions when looked at the other articles in the
declaration.
In the United Nations Declarations on Human Cloning voting

that was done in the 82nd plenary session of the United States,
63 http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13177
&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
(Retrieved May 14th,2012)
102 Data-Reality
the declaration is accepted by 84 votes against 34 counter votes

and 37 abstentions. But it is interesting that there are countries
which are against the declaration; and the attitudes they have
related to the human cloning is also striking. China declaring a
counter view states its opinion as below in the report issued by
the United Nations;
The representative of China, also speaking in

explanation after the vote, said that different
countries varied in their understanding of the
text’s inherent moral, ethical and religious aspects,
and it was regrettable that the Declaration failed to
give effect to the concerns of those countries. The
prohibitions contained in the text could be
misunderstood as covering all forms of cloning.
Having voted against the Declaration, the Chinese
Government would continue to adhere to its
position against reproductive human cloning,
while maintaining strict controls over therapeutic
cloning.64
It seems that the clash of opinions in the cloning and genetic

studies because of the states can’t be solved yet and it is obvious
that the ethical investigations will be ignored in the possible
studies to be carried out by the illegal organizations. Today, as
the parents try various ways to provide the best opportunities for
the development of their children, it can be said that it is
impossible for them to say “no” to the betterments, which can be
possible by the prenatal genetic methods even if the written laws
prohibit them. Of course it is a possibility for the parents to say
“no” in accordance with their religious beliefs and ethical
understandings. But when thought of the competitive
environment related to the sharing of the resources that already
continues in consequence of the appearance of the superior
64 http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/
ga10333.doc.htm (Retrieved May 14th,2012)
humans with genetic interventions, there is no doubt that a

distinction will occur between the superior and not-superior
human beings. When the opportunities like genetic designing the
children to be born and producing them by copying their
parents’ genes are available for financial returns, the class
differences among the society will be set and human
discrimination will be rushed up. The priceless aspect of the
human dignity that Kant drew will be lost in consequence of the
commodified human, whose life quality is determined in
proportion to the assessed capital value. Francis Fukuyama says
about why we need to be concerned related to the post human
future;
Human nature is what gives us a moral sense,

provides us with the social skills to live in society,
and serves as a ground for more sophisticated
philosophical discussion of rights, justice and
morality. What is ultimately at stake with
biotechnology is not just some utilitarian cost-
benefit calculus concerning future medical
technologies, but the very grounding of the human
moral sense, which has been a constant ever since
there were human beings. It may be the case that,
as Nietzsche predicted, we are fated to move
beyond this moral sense.65
The new face of the earth that Fukuyama says as the “beyond
this moral sense” and in which the truth lost is reality and new
truths are set forward is a multidimensional theory that people
just began to know. The technology took its place as a transition
point for the people to perceive the new world by standing as a
new dimension exactly in the middle of this meeting. The
technology sucks all humanly values that it touches, reflect the
material aspects of the human by encapsulating it and turn the
65 Fukuyama, Francis (2002), Our Posthuman Future Picador

Pub, p101-102
104 Data-Reality
human into a value that will become a component of the wheel

belonging to the system which is being formed. It is inevitable
for the human beings to be crashed and destroyed in that wheel
when the control of the wheel is left to the wheel itself.
105
Techno-Realities
Wandering outside, inside, continuously around and always at

some parts of us; as technology shapes the humane values of
humans, is it not possible to claim, then that under this intense
pressure there appears differences in the behaviors of people
with respect to the past?
Leaving aside the Post-human discussion that will solidly

emerge in the near future, even today – while distances could
still be conservatively preserved somehow, it could be observed
that due to technological interactions people have acquired
different characteristics. Many people, while performing their
daily activities, organize their lives through the mobile devices
with data processors they always carry along and information
that was once memorized is now being loaded into these
devices.
The pencil which is one of the most significant instruments of

the civilization turned into an object that we can’t find around us
easily. The computer users, who can communicate with the
others easily via internet on the cyber world, can be shy about
having a conversation when they are face to face with each other
in their real lives. With the McLuhanist expression,
communication between any two locations became very simple
no matter what the distance is in our world which turns into a
global village. In this period with such a great pace that the
physical distances are ignored, the phenomena of time and place
began to be felt and lived different from the past.
Due to the assistance services provided to us by our computers

to ease our lives further, writing text in text editors has
transformed into a situation where making errors is not a
problem anymore and where everything is automatically
corrected. Technology has almost gone one step further beyond
imposing us on what to write and how to write it and it almost
tells us what to think and how to think. For most people, the
Google Search Engine has become a source where they ask more
106 Data-Reality
questions with respect to their mothers and fathers. We can only

remember the birthdays of loved ones through software
automatically reminding us of these. What sort of differentiation
does all this technology-dominant structural transformation
cause, then, in the behaviors of humans?
Does the human adopt the behavior of the technology? The

human behavior and the open ended norms are in a rapid change.
Does the materialist technology which is the primary architect of
such change ask for too much?
Partial Memories
In our time that the information processors are a significant part

of our daily activities, we leave most of the work that we are
responsible to do to the assistants designed and prepared for us.
Many of our personal knowledge including our appointments,
phone book and even friends list are organized by various
software for us. Especially our appointment books which we can
reach online and share with others when we want, turned into a
central authority which directs us and that we find the answers to
the questions that we ask to ourselves by faltering about what we
need to do at that moment.
The people transferred a many of the works that they do by

using their intelligence to the information processors which
become cheaper and widespread. The period that we keep the
telephone numbers in the printed books and that we memorized
some significant numbers as the telephone devices used in the
process before the digital revolution in the telephone technology
didn’t have an application of memory. Today it is hard to meet
the people who know the telephone numbers other than their
own by heart as we can easily save the telephone numbers of the
people that we communicate in our own cell phones.
If we consider this period that the communication era gained

speed by getting a digital dimension and its popularity increased,
of course there is no doubt that the contacts that we
communicate have increased thanks to the fact that the
opportunities of communication have become widespread

compared to the past. Well, if we don’t know some basic
telephone numbers other than our own one by heart, does that
make us less smart? As we keep asking the simple four
operations to the calculator that we reach easily, do we get more
and more stupid day by day?
Mark Bauerlein talks in his controversial book named "Young

Americans are the Dumbest Generation" about that the
youngsters of the new generation live by being unaware of the
cultural values that he suggested as a significant part of the
civilization even though they are perfectly successful in using
the communication devices they reach and states that such a
situation makes the youngsters of the new are stupid. According
to the view of Bauerlein, the youngsters today are interested in
only what their close friends do in a way that they are indifferent
to what happens in the world and in consequence of this
situation, the use of social media is commonly seen among the
young computer users.
It isn't enough to say these young people are

uninterested in world realities. They are actively
cut off from them. Or a better way to put it is to
say that they are encased in more immediate
realities that shut out conditions beyond - friends,
work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook.
Each day, the information they receive and the
interactions they must be so local or superficial
that the facts of government, foreign and domestic
affairs, the historical past, and the fine arts never
slip through.66
66 Bauerlein, Mark (2008)The Dumbest Generation: How the

Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes
Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) , Tarcher
Pub 2008, p13
108 Data-Reality
Isn’t it possible to reach the content that has the cultural

information that Baurlein points by using the opportunities of
the communication era? According to Bauerlein, the technology,
promising to improve the intelligence of the youngsters by
enriching their pleasure, reveals the results which are just
opposite to what is thought. To what extent it is true that the
technology causes a negative development on the new
generation as Bauerlein states?
When we looked at the libraries which have significance as the

information centre throughout the history, we see that the
libraries today, by turning their sources into digital information,
try to develop systems that the people seeking for the
information can easily access. What does such a great effort
stem from? What is the difference of the habit to read books in
classical ways from reading the text on a screen as its current
implication? The book in the classical habit of reading books
that we hold as a physical object conveys the information to the
readers at a slow pace by using a linear narration method. In his
article expressing the discrete, rhythmic sequence of texts in
written form, Vilem Flusser states as follows:
Texts must flow. Compressed letters, words,

sentences, and paragraphs must follow one on the
other without gaps. Particles of text must be built
into a wave structure. It is about rhythm, about
layered levels of rhythm. Each single level of
letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs must
resonate in a rhythm particular to itself, and all
must resonate together.67
As Flusser mentioned too, I wonder that are thoughts in script in

compressed condition? Are the thoughts symbolized with some
typographic figures prepared in small sizes to place on the
67 Flusser, Vilem (2011) Does Writing Have a Future?

Univ Of Minnesota Press, p44
paper? Script's size is not important when the simple content is

examined with a point of view. But visual perception does not
evaluate this case in this way. The chosen graphical differences,
typographic preferences in usage of alphabet in scripts confront
us as an important design decision about written transmission of
thought. Besides size of alphabet is a subject that should not be
ignored. Whereas a possible unprejudiced approach is followed
traditionally in scripts to comply with the standards, the whole
characters are used in equal size. Actually it is possible to give
support to opinions visually with the scripts. This approach is
used in many comics nowadays. With its specific typography
structure, comics try to vocalize scripts as far as possible.
Occasionally they can uses font in big size to emphasize some
part of scripts. Scripts' uniform structure expressed as cold can
be overcome with similar approaches. Also John Hollander’s
poems that he converted text string to illustration are a
successful example that can be given with regard to be had a
visual eloquence.
Approach that has the understanding of composition production

that textual content combines with visual content is applied
influentially in deep rooted calligraphy. Albert Borgman says
those about this subject;
[…] In calligraphy, thing and sign are raised to a

beautiful balance as they are on a larger scale in
the medieval codex, an illuminated manuscript on
parchment pages, bound between covers ornate
with gold and precious stones. 68
68 Borgman, Albert (1999) Holding on to reality : the nature

of information at the turn of the millenium, The University
of Chicago Press
110 Data-Reality
Figure: ‘Swan and Shadow,’ John Hollander, The Norton Anthology of Poetry,
fourth ed. (New York and London: WW Norton 1996).
Even if thoughts are in scripts as form, actually writings are

reproduced from inside of a sound structure when they are read
and written. But as being in this text that you read, reader
produces these sounds by interpreting in his/her opinion again.
Thought is a structure that is difficult to express. In this respect
it is an extremely unfortunate condition that they lose the sound
that is an important component of scripts. As the sound has
wealthy phrase structure such as diversity, rhythm. In traditional
methods, visual perception, that creates rhythm of a text, can be
done simply with the punctuations and paragraph separations.
The perception of rhythmicity as underlined by Flusser has had a
more intense, significant coverage in poetry. As in Getrude
Stein’s "Suppose, to suppose, suppose a rose is a rose is a

rose"69, it is possible to explicitly observe this flow and
rhythmical structure.
The reader understands the informative content after he

interpreted it in accordance to his view by deciphering the
information included in the book thanks to the ability to read
that he gained by the education he previously had on a surface
that is decorated with the symbolic elements and full of writings.
The visual elements alongside the written text play a significant
role in conveying and enriching the content by corresponding to
the information in the text.
The books consisting of printed texts are passively fixed and

need the readers to be deciphered with their content which is
fixed on the paper surface. In the electronic resources of
information which is one of the new media of the information
era, the information can be processed as data and that condition
causes that a dynamic pace is revealed related to the information
flaw with its structure which is divided into pieces. Even though
the parts, like the title, contents and index, used in the printed
books facilitate reaching the information being sought with a
key word, the electronic information sources equipped with a
database feature provided the opportunity for the readers to
reach the information much faster thanks to their key word
searching feature that can reach the whole content.
It is a concentration requiring process to get a book in a printed

format and read it completely. However, when compared to the
high pace of life that technology brought to the human life, the
habit of reading books is very slow in terms of pace. As we
cannot do something else while reading a printed book and we
look at a constantly stable object on the eye level, it can be said
that reading books may be boring for many people compared to
our technological habits. As the reader, who sets off with the
aim of reaching the information, can find the information he
69 Stein, Getrude (1975) Primer for the Gradual

Understanding of Gertrude Stein Black Sparrow Press
112 Data-Reality
seeks with the key words via the searching engines on the
internet easily, reaching the same information in traditional ways
by looking up to various sources in the libraries is a difficult and
time taking condition. However, reading books is not a process
that we get the result with a few sentences in the end. No matter
how fast the pace that technology tries to make us live at, what a
writer wants to convey us through a book he writes is presented
to us by assimilation in a structure organized to be comprised of
more than a few sentences. Otherwise it is possible that the
phenomenon called book is perceived as a whole comprising of
the searching results. Actually what the searching engines point
is the book itself while providing reference for just a section of
the related book.
While it is said in the various sources that the book reading habit
has decreased, it won’t be right to say that the habit to read
written texts has decreased too throughout the world. Today, the
information users consume the information in various ways by
intensively feeding themselves with the Internet. When we look
at the statistics, it is seen that the social media use is the most
common habit of using media in the society. When we
investigate the written text reading habit of a person who spends
2-3 hours on the social media daily, it can be said that he reads
more texts than an average book reader did before the digital
revolution. The visual or textual contents produced today has
increased at a rate that can make the people dizzy compared to
the past. In spite of the devices that can be used by the person to
reach the source, he desires in the complex environment that the
information inflation created, it became too hard to reach valid
and consistent information.
Nowadays, the phenomenon to have knowledge about an

opinion or a subject by feeding on the sources existing as a part
of the traditional education system enters in a process that it is
questioned what kind of information we need to have free from
the information confusion. What does one of the criticisms of
Bauerlein that the youngsters don’t know the names of the
countries which were the allies of America in World War II or
more generally that they are empty about the history mean for
today? Do we really need to know these? Or don’t our
technological devices that have such kind of information do it

for us? Especially while it is possible for a person addicted to the
virtual environment to learn any fact quickly, do we really need
to have such kind of information in mind?
Before getting lost in an ocean of information which is common

at such level, the people managed to save the information that
they can’t bear in mind by coding them in different fields. The
large and small notes that we keep in the notebooks we carry
with us perform the role of reserve intelligence unit as an
extension of our minds. Andy Clark and David J. Chalmers
makes analysis related to the extension of memory by setting off
from the characters Inga and Otto that they fictionalized for the
relationship between notebook and mind in their article named
"The Extended Mind". Inga is capable of using his intelligence
normally but Otto forgets a number of things due to the
Alzheimer's disease he had. Inga can easily remember that the
address is the 53rd street without challenging his mind when he
wants to go to Museum of Modern Art after the recommendation
of one of his friends. But Otto always carries a notebook with
him and writes everything he newly learns down on it. When he
wants to go to the same exhibition, he looks up to his notebook
and reads the information that the museum is on the 53rd street.
Clark and Chalmers say about the condition that these two
character experience together:
For in relevant respects the cases are entirely

analogous: the notebook plays for Otto the same
role that memory plays for Inga. The information
in the notebook functions just like the information
constituting an ordinary non-occurrent belief; it
just happens that this information lies beyond the
skin.70
70 Clark, Andy "The Extended Mind" (with Dave Chalmers)

ANALYSIS 58: 1: 1998 p.7-19
114 Data-Reality
Chalmers and Clark suggest that the relationship that a person

makes with the notebook has parallelisms with the relationship
that one makes with a normally functioning mind. The
information is coded as belief first and represented in the mind.
The person firstly questions the information that he seeks as the
belief in his mind and can get such information in his mind or in
his notebook as Otto does by reaching the source that the
information is recorded.
The moral is that when it comes to belief, there is

nothing sacred about skull and skin. What makes
some information count as a belief is the role it
plays, and there is no reason why the relevant role
can be played only from inside the body. 71
According to Chalmers and Clark, it is possible to keep the

information out of the mind through a store coded with symbols
like alphabet, words, sentences etc. as in the example of
notebook. The inter-language is an inevitable interface for the
person and the store performing as the mind addition. Whether it
is a notebook or a system that directly intervenes in the neurons
in the brain, the relationship to be made with the mind will be
done with a pre-determined communication language. The belief
stimulation which is managed by the mind will get the response
it takes, after it reaches the store of information outside and
makes the enquiry, with a language it can comprehend and use it
as necessary. While forming this system, what is important is to
create a one-to-one function as an interface. But such
biuniqueness comes out depending on the perfect working
structure of a technologic system. Of course the communication
done on a language can’t complete a function having a
biuniqueness between the individuals. The person can’t form a
biuniqueness between what appears in his mind and what he
says even in the phase of expressing his emotions and thoughts.
71 Ibid
Spatial Realities
Lev Sergeyevich Termen, when he invented the musical

instrument named Theremin, set forth that the feature of the
instrument that it can be controlled by moving in the space is
what makes a significant conceptual difference. While the
traditional musical instruments are used thanks to some
interfaces such as the console and frets which are the parts of the
body, the instrument Theremin is controlled without touching
the instrument and by the moves of the hand on the air. The
existence of the space as a new dimension in the music deeply
affected Clara Rockmore who is a Theremin virtuoso. Clara
Rockmore says about the relationship of the Theremin with the
space in her interview with Robert Moog:
When Professor Termen invented it, it remains the only

instrument which is controlled completely in the space without
touching anything at all. And I find that particularly fascinating
at this time, because all the younger generations are so space
conscious, now they go through the entire door that opens
magically before them in the supermarket, they are not
surprised. But when the instrument was invented, you have this
electromagnetic field that is controlled completely in the air. 72
Do the worlds that we define as inside and outside of us express

a grouping that we can demonstrate as two Venn schemes by
dividing their borders from each other? While what happens
inside us continues existing in a structure that is hard to express
in the complex system of our minds, the creatures that we define
as outside are included in a coverage zone defined as space. But
that outer space includes and covers us too. The polar attitude
that we express points a highly mathematical model. But the
space can sometimes make us live the state of being out of our
72 Moog, Robert (Producer) (1998). Clara Rockmore: The

Greatest Theremin Virtuosa (Videotape (VHS)). Moog
Music and Little Big Films
116 Data-Reality
minds without being out. Our dreams mostly excess the limits of
reality and make us doubt that they are experienced realities.
The dreams keep being an inspiration for the people with the
fortune that they made them experience. Another concept that
we live as we are out of ourselves even if we aren’t and thus
express as unreal is the hallucination. For various reasons, the
hallucinations occurring in consequence of the interventions to
the systems of thought of the people with a number of chemical
substances make the people live a psychological state that we
lose the reality of the world that we live in. Our perceptions,
especially our visual perception, may easily lose the pursuit of
the reality through fictions like illusions other than the dreams
and hallucination. Even though the visual trick that was
performed happens in the space out of us in reality, the resolved
perception creates an unreal state in our minds. The mental
tricks called illusion and magic can perceptibly make us live the
unreality. Our opinions about what the reality is are actually
formed by our beliefs that we live as obsessions.
Believing is the result of the reality we create in our mind. Our

paradigms that we shape with all our value judgments and
observations on earth define our own realities. On the heights of
our pyramid of believed values, we convert values that we feel
more intensely into facts we almost give up questioning. Belief
is, then, the heights of this pyramid. Our beliefs that we have
redeemed unquestionable are sides of us that are obstinate,
unaffected.
The pond of reality that we perceive by interpreting with our

beliefs may cause us live our point of view to the world in
different dimensions. The visual illusions that can be called as
twists or trickery have been used in various ways for different
reasons in the past. When it comes to the day we live, such
illusions can be presented to the viewers at a much more
advanced level thanks to the developed imaging technologies.
The performance that Snoop Dog and Tupac performed together

in the 2012 Cochaella Music Festival in California which is an
impressive example of this matter displays the show that the
reality was upside down. Tupac is known as a significant
American rap artist who got shot and killed by a gun in 1996.
Thanks to the projection of a video of Tupac, which was taken
when he was alive, with holographic methods for the concert in
Cochella, the simulation that was provided by showing the video
recorded before as a real view and the inclusion of the real
physical existence of Snoop Dog who was alive in the time of
the concert provided that an environment that the real and unreal
met at the same place was originated. Even though there was a
simulation whose conditions were so limited as a result of the
fact that the holographic Tupac in the recorded video couldn’t
present a realistic interaction except for content structure, the
result acquired turned into an experience of watching a concert
that makes sense beyond the reality for the tens of thousands of
people who watched the concert.
When the holographic technology used in the performance that

Tupac and Snoop Dog were on the stage together, it is revealed
that it is a method that was known as Pepper’s Ghost and which
was set forth by Giambattista della Porta in the 16th century.
Porta was studying the relation of the reflections that were
acquired through the catoptrics methods as described in the book
of Siegfried Zielinski named “Deep Time of the Media” with the
reality. It is stated in the same book of Zielinski, that Porta laid
the base of the system used above and described it as visual
illusion, as:
In the following manner a mirror can be set up such that when

you look into it, you should not see your own face but some
form that is not to be seen anywhere round about: fix a flat
mirror on a wall perpendicularly above [another] wall. Incline it
from the top at a specific angle. In the wall opposite [the flat
mirror] cut a hole the size of a painting or a statue, which one
places in the corresponding size in front of the hole in order to
conceal it in this way from the person who looks [in the mirror].
This will make the matter even more wonderful… From its fixed
position, the mirror must capture the image in such a way that
the gaze [of the spectator] and the visible object meet in the
looking glass … Thus, when a spectator comes here, he will
never see his own face, nor anything else besides. And when he
stands opposite the mirror and reaches the intended spot, he shall
118 Data-Reality
see the painting, or some other thing, which he cannot see

anywhere else.73
The visual illusion that Giambattista della Porta pointed in the

16th century constitute the basis for the technology used as
Holographic 3D Projection today. According to some, the
Holographic 3D Projection effect produced with the Pepper’s
ghost method doesn’t have hologram characteristics and is
accepted only as 3D Projection.
The word “holography” is a word derived from the combination

of the Greek words “holos” meaning “whole” and “grafe”
meaning “writing, drawing”. The hologram is known as the
technique of turning the images into three dimensional displays
by recording the light information that the objects in the world
reflect and reproducing this information. The display coming out
doesn’t have material characteristics as objects but are seen as
the reflection of an image consisting only of the light structure.
No matter how the classification is made, the perceptive

consequence that the Pepper’s Ghost technique reveals comply
with the definition made for the holography by getting it
watched by the viewers. The definition gets free from the
technique and an observation phenomenon related to the result
gets important in the definition. In an axis that the experimental
optical illusion studies that Porta did in the 16th century met
with the computer technology of our time, the Holographic 3D
Projection method presents an illusion that the reality is
experienced together with the surreal to the viewers.
The object that we perceive while watching the holographic

image is an image zone which isn’t actually it and which is
reflected to us. The area that the reflection happens can be
defined as a screen and the screen surrounds the image and
presents to the viewer. The screen is, in a way, the world of
73 Zielinski, Siegfried (2008) Deep Time of the Media:

Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by
Technical Means MIT Press, p94
reality which is reflected to our minds and which we catch by

our visual perception. By the visual media’s becoming
widespread with the technological devices like television,
computer and cell phones, our habit of looking at a stable frame
has become an important daily activity of the modern life. Put to
the test by a bombardment of images, our capacity for
perception is being pushed to the limits each day. Everywhere
we look, we see screens, screens, and more screens, big screens
and small screens. Mobile phones, cameras, computers,
animated billboards, watches, televisions, etc. There is no doubt
that for the person looking at it, each screen conveys an intense
flow of information. And so today, being the screen-crazed
people that we are, we find ourselves captive to a four-cornered
prison. Ever since, we first began visually recording moments of
life, we have been playing myriad games with our perceptions.
Series after series of sequences of squares - hopping, jumping,
fitting, and reflecting back on to our watchful eyes - impel us to
question the profound relationship between reality and
representation.
The screens came closer to a distance of half a meter to us with

the computers by freeing from their usage that we did while
watching them by sitting on a couch from a few meters and
came about 20-30 centimeters away from our eyes with the cell
phones. Materializing information by getting it into a frame has
been done since the past with the mentality of tabulation of the
idea. However, even though such mentality is kept in form
today, it began to be moved into different dimensions. With the
generation of the participator profile that allows the person to be
included in the frame, the image began to be a part of the reality
that the person lives. A degradation process related to the
presentation of the existing is being talked together by
electronically processing the high definition world, which we
perceive through our eyes, by various optical technologies
synchronously.
The aim to get a high definition real-like image continues

seriously in the technological competition environment as a
struggle. The 3D Television presentation that Panasonic made in
the IFA 2010 exposition organized in Berlin reveals a striking
120 Data-Reality
condition related to conveying the reality via the screen. The

trapeze team performing in the exposition area is recorded by the
cameras at the same time and the image acquired is displayed to
the viewers via 3D glasses on the 3D televisions. The viewers
watch the trapeze show which is really performed at that time
before them on a special screen with a real-like quality.
Although the display watched via some apparatus consists of a
simulation, the people in the area prefer watching the simulation
instead of the real one to test its reality.
The difference that the real-like image’s being lower than image
quality of the reality gets down to an ignorable level in terms of
use together with the fact that the internet video channels are
used frequently and the 3D animations become widespread.
While synchronously watching the real image on a screen, the
designed and planned reality added on the displayed image
enriches and manipulate the existing reality. The enriched reality
more effectively persuades the viewer through the
synchronization. When the point of view of the viewer is
passively fictionalized as witnessing the scene within the frame,
the reality of the image being witnessed is at a lower level
compared to the reality of the image that the person creates by
using his own eyes.
It is possible to explain the two differences stated above with

these following examples. The textual content, provided for the
purpose of giving information in the sports events broadcasted
live, is synchronously reflected on the live broadcasted image.
For example, at the moment of a free kick in the football, the
round graphic image demonstrating that the opponent players are
9 meters and 15 centimeters away from the point of the kick is
synchronously added on the image of the scene by dimensional
matching. This image which normally isn’t on the pitch turns
into a part of the synchronously presented reality. Compared to
this situation, as well as the images watched while looking at the
camera image on the cell phone screen are under control of the
user’s frame, they can be presented to the person in a persuasive
way by enriching the reality impression with a continuing
behavior depending on the movements of the head of the person
thanks to the apparatus located in front of the eye.
Today, studies pertaining to the concurrent retrieval of

information, by humans, from an external source are performed
under the title of "Augmented Reality". In Augmented Reality,
the person is concurrently shown an additional content
augmented to the real world she / he is accustomed to seeing
with her / his eyes. The reality enriched by the data processor
and the software could be watched, on the person’s side, by a
monitor or by projection into the eye.
The idea of presenting the world that we watch on a real size by

adding another image dates back to very earlier times by turning
into application. It is known that there are various researches on
this subject that the scientists such as Filippo Brunelleschi,
Giambattista della Porta and Athanasius Kircher in the 15th and
16th centuries. The basic principles of the studies done on the
subject of getting an image in the consequence of the reflection
of the light which is known as catoptrics are based on the
theories that Euclid found related to the mirrors. One of such
studies, a picture that Filippo Brunelleschi drew is very
interesting. Brunelleschi picturized Florentine Baptistery on a
small painting and made a hole in the middle of the painting as
small as a person can see through an eye. While the person looks
behind the painting through the hole, he watches the reflection
of the painting on a mirror at an appropriate distance facing the
painting and also synchronously sees the real clouds reflecting
on the mirror from the sky as if they are reflected on the sky part
of the painting. This consequence acquired with a very simple
technique is an important study on reflecting the reality on the
unreal and getting them together.
A similar study is observed in the illusion device called

metamorphosis apparatus of the Athanasius Kircher from the
book “Deep Time of the Media” of Siegfried Zielinski. The real
and unreal images are reflected on the same surface and create
an imaginary togetherness in the study of Kircher. Zielinski
explains the metamorphosis apparatus as:
When the mirror is tilted, the object that the

observer sees in place of his or her own head is no
122 Data-Reality
longer a hidden sculpture or other material object;

it is now an image. Below the mirror, Kircher
installs an octagonal drum on which is painted
pictures of the sun and of seven different animals'
heads. On entering the chamber, the observer sees
first the sun, the mediator of all that exists on
Earth, and then his or her own allegorical
transformation into an ass, a lion, or other
creature. The images are painted with great skill in
close-up so that they substitute exactly for the
head of the observer when he or she takes the
position indicated by marks on the floor.74
The illusion effect that Kircher designed and that is explained

above happens on the screen on the digital environment thanks
to various image processing techniques that computer
technology presents. The viewers can watch that the masks or
apparatus that follow the movement of their faces are put on
their faces when they are facing a camera thanks to some
advanced techniques such as facial recognition which is done by
digitally processing the image coming from the camera. Some
eye glass companies use various systems that allow the people to
try eye glasses on their faces and scan the options interactively
on their web sites as a commercial application. Also the studies
on the systems that can allow the people to try the clothes
appropriate in their size by standing before the camera with the
applications called virtual wearing are still performed.
At the point reached today as a result of the studies being

performed, the first steps have been taken in the field of research
on Augmented Reality and products corresponding to the related
needs are quickly being introduced into the market. By courtesy
of the processors’ of the mobile devices, now available to end-
users, being adequately fast and the cameras having surpassed
74 Zielinski, Siegfried - Deep Time of the Media: Toward an

Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means,
The MIT Press,2008 p136,138
certain quality standards, Augmented Reality applications have

begun to be used by wide masses nowadays.
The reality appeared in the Augmented Reality consists of the

addition of the information formed out of the mind into the
reality of the mind. The apparatus providing the addition allow a
trip in the data media by the interaction of the users with the
system and provide an opportunity to reach other information as
well. It is aimed for the apparatus used in the studies done over
the Augmented Reality matter in terms of technology to be more
and more ubiquitous day by day. One of the aims wanted to be
reached soon is the production of the Augmented Reality glasses
which will allow the projection of the information on the retina
in the human eye. This objective is so close today; many brands
completed the prototyping phase and are about to complete the
preparation to get in the market. It is certain that the lenses
having the same features will be produced just after the
Augmented Reality glasses.
It seems that, while through Augmented Reality the reality

concept comes closer to the meta-physical dimension, bordering
around mergence, technology guides the course of events as a
compass-enabling inter-pass. The augmentation of non-real into
real is a factor that could rush up the variability of (the
perception of) reality from individual to individual. The
enhanced reality as seen (in the eye) by anyone while walking
on the street will be different from another’s.
While a situation where meta-physical blends with physical and

reality is mixed with meta-reality is experienced right in front of
the eyes of individuals and in the worlds to exist in their minds,
the collective perception of the society for existing realities will
differentiate and realities unique to individuals will emerge.
Although the enhanced content will be created and managed by
some, for sure, the individual having the opportunity to select
from the pool of existing knowledge will create combinations
based on her / his own perceptions and create her / his own
reality herself / himself.
124 Data-Reality
Could reality be virtual? Although this question has a

conceptually contradicting proposal within itself, there exists a
technological field of working called Virtual Reality where
considerably serious progress has been made. Virtual Reality is
the technology of a presenting a simulated reality created by
computers to the viewers in the real world.
Although, today, application-wise generally those studies

appealing to the sense of vision have gained wide currency,
studies on developing systems for our other senses also are on-
going. What is targeted in the Virtual Reality technology is the
assurance that artificially generated reality that does not exist in
the physical world is as real as the physical reality.
William R. Sherman and Alan B. Craig use the definition below

for the Virtual Reality in their book named "Understanding
Virtual Reality: Interface”:
Virtual Reality [is] a medium composed of

interactive computer simulations that sense the
participant's position and actions and replace or
augment the feed back to one or more senses,
giving the feeling of being mentally immersed or
present in the simulation (a virtual world)75
Does being mentally immersed in the new virtual worlds created

artificially limit our physical movements? Two models are
followed in the Virtual Reality applications generally in the
studies being done. In the stationary systems, while the person is
moving in a place the size of which is fixed the virtual reality is
created around the person synchronously and thus the virtual
reality is experienced. In the head-based display systems, the
virtual reality image appears before the person’s eye as the
75 Sherman, William R., Craig, Alan B. : Understanding

Virtual Reality: Interface, Application, and Design, Morgan
Kaufmann; 1 edition (2002) p13
person wears the apparatus creating the virtual reality on the

head and thus the barrier of the limited place in the stationary
applications is removed. But even if it is a head based system,
the user physically moves away from the point he stands when
he really moves his feet in order to walk in the virtual reality.
Even the opportunity to move freely on a treadmill is provided
to the person, who is using the Virtual reality application, to
simulate the walking functions, the person can’t perform the
actions like jumping over an obstacle within the virtual reality
and the virtual reality may lose its line of reality. The human
body and its mechanism has a really complex structure. The
situations that the Virtual Reality applications are successful
may be in the cases that the person doesn’t use its body
functions very actively and intensively. The flight simulators are
successful at simulating the reality with their photorealistic three
dimensional visual contents when considered the conditions
such as stable sitting position and limited mobility of the user
during the flight activity. But, in order to make the people
experience a trip in a forest in a real-like condition, it is required
to virtually model and apply a means that the person is free to do
anything at anytime and that the person can go any direction and
feel different things. The perception of the place is a reality that
a person experiences everyday so it seems very difficult to
provide a reality at an extent that the person will not recognize
the difference through external factors. In his book
"Cyberculture" Pierre Levy asserts a philosophical definition for
the word virtual as follows:
In its philosophical sense, the virtual is that which

exists potentially rather than actually, the field of
forces and problems that is resolved through
actualization. The virtual precedes its effective or
formal concretization (the tree is virtually present
in its seed). Philosophically speaking, the virtual is
obviously a very important dimension of reality.
But as it is currently employed, the word "virtual"
126 Data-Reality
often signifies unreality, "reality" here implying

some material embodiment, a tangible presence. 76
With all the technological forms it wraps into, materiality

reveals different dimensions of reality for meta-reality.
Conventionalized to actualize our relationship to reality by
means of materials, our system of thinking, with its new,
technologically metamorphosed style, renders in different ways
and perceives the realities inhabiting the fictionalized scenarios
presented through different interfaces by technology. Pierre
Levy states as follows considering the reality of virtual.
Although we are unable to assign it any spatial

and temporal coordinates, the virtual is
nonetheless real. Words exist. The virtual exists
without being anywhere. It is also worth noting
that actualizations of the same virtual entity can be
vastly different from one another, the actual is
never completely predetermined by the virtual.
Thus from both an acoustical as well as a semantic
point of view, no given actualization of a word is
exactly like another. Unforeseeable pronunciations
and meanings can always arise. The virtual is an
infinite source of actualization.77
For sure, virtual reality is not the first ground where reality and
non-reality come closer to each other. In the past, for the
representation of reality, sets of studies have been exercised in
the various occupations of art. The allegory of shadow plays that
are shown to the prisoners in the cave known as Allegory of the
Cave that Plato mentions in The Republic is an important point
where meta-reality is questioned. According to Plato, the
76 Levy, Pierre (2001) Cyberculture, Univ Of Minnesota

Press, p29
77 Ibid, p30
perception of reality is the reflection of ideal reality. Plato states

humbly that the actual duty of philosophers is to return to dark
caves and to analyze the relationships between reality and the
reflection of reality.
When we consider various branches of the art, especially the art

of sculpture could produce highly real-like representations with
its structure of three dimensional volumes in creating the reality.
The study named Holy Blood Altar done by Tilman
Riemenschneider in the 15th century, long before the Virtual
Reality, related to the presentation of the reality designed by
creating a scenario of what a person experiences in the place he
stands, is highly attractive. Tilman Riemenschneider who lived
between 1460 and 1531 produced significant works of art in
sculpture and wood engraving. The wooden sculpture work of
Riemenschneider named Holy Blood Altar is a masterpiece that
was created by a highly delicately engraving the wood and
simulates the last dinner Jesus had before being crucified. The
masterpiece is exhibited in the church named St. James which is
in a town named Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany. The
most significant feature of this masterpiece that makes it a
striking work of art when we enter in the church and see it is that
Jesus stands in the centre as turned his back on us instead of
standing on the corner of the table as in the normal. The
masterpiece meets you in the place that you go in order to
confess and invites you into a scenario, the reality of which is
designed, by giving you the Judas character that has turned his
back. However, if we need to make a comparison, the situation
being experienced reveals a condition beyond the Virtual
Reality. The reality sense being lived in the place designed by
the Holy Blood Altar with its structure added on the existing
reality points the Augmented Reality subject of today. The
person going in the church to confess experiences the reality in
an enriched way in a meta-real condition beyond the pure
material content of the sculpture through the symbol created
from the wood and added on the person’s sense of reality.
Micheil Heim says about the sense of reality in the Medieval
Age in his book named "The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality"
that:
128 Data-Reality
In the medieval period, real things are those that

shimmer with symbolic significance. The biblical-
religious symbols add super real messages to
realities, giving them permanence and meaning,
while the merely material aspects of things are less
real, merely terrestrial, defective rubbish.78
Based on the sense of the reality in the Medieval Age as Heim

states and the method to convey the content in
Riemenschneider’s masterpiece Holy Blood Altar, we can say
that the concept of reality has been perceived differently in
different times throughout the history and has changed in terms
of its aspects in time. Heim states that the reality has become a
concept at atomic extent when it’s reached to the modern times
in the history of civilization and says that the constantly
changing sense of reality of the world, which gets more complex
as we try to understand the universe, is expressed differently by
different ways of expression. The spaces that we fictionalized as
mediated spaces which include different realities take the
concept of reality in the people’s minds to different dimensions
by using the devices of the technology such as Virtual Reality
and Augmented Reality. The limited reality that Virtual Reality
presents reveals a consequence that the real reality couldn’t be
shared through its emotional aspects. The virtual reality content
presented mostly on screens may present the viewers a reality
quality that can’t be compared to the real world. But the
Augmented Reality differs from the Virtual Reality in such
terms.
In the Augmented Reality, the reality stands real and any other
content can be added on it. That’s why the aim of the
Augmented Reality to present visuality as the same quality with
the actual reality seems so unimportant when compared to the
same case with the Virtual Reality. When thought on the base of
application, the visual objects which interact with the real
78 Heim, Michael : The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality –

Oxford University Press - 1993 p117
objects in the Augmented Reality points the objects of the

existing reality. Even the added images used in the field of
image of the person are already used in various applications;
they haven’t started to be used commonly by large masses. But
they can provide a constant informative communication to the
users even if they can’t appear synchronously in the field of
image of the person. Reaching the desired information by
opening the related application in the mobile device in order to
get the daily temperatures takes only a few seconds. Thanks to
Augmented Reality glasses, any information will be presented
before the eyes of the users much faster. The view towards the
world will be formed with different content by each user as the
content of the information presented through the glasses will be
organized according to the different desires of the person.
Augmented Reality will bring forth a new perspective towards
the space we perceive by adding the information axis, which is a
new dimension, on the actual reality which is the base for the
image being viewed by protecting that actual reality. The
dynamic connection of the human with the technology formed
over the Augmented Reality will impose the human a space full
of information data over the perception system of the human
itself.
Collective Intelligence for a Datasphere
With the revolution of information age, around us, rapidly

growing data communication traffic that we cannot follow
become a factor not only relaying the information from a source
to another receiver but also forcing human to become a different
person by putting away the human from his nature. Human
keeping in touch with the external world thanks to senses
perform potently his observations that he qualifies as reality
everyday under his senses' guidance. But we can divide the
method that is performed in communication of perceived reality,
into two as active and passive. In the active perceived reality,
person incorporate the phenomenon in the world in his/her
reality world by perceiving in place where phenomenon occurs
130 Data-Reality
itself after s/he filtrates with the filter that s/he makes towards
his/her preferences.
For example, person, who notice with his/her eyes personally

that forest fire breaks out and smokes rising from a distance, can
accept as real depending upon the accuracy rate at a certain
level. In fact the reason of rising smokes can be also a controlled
camp fire started by a team camping in the forest. This case cuts
down the fact that there is fire in the forest. But person who
witnesses closely the fire rising from the forest experiences a
clearer reality perception about the fire.
Passive reality perception takes place the other pole of content

defined by active reality perception. In this perception structure,
the information reaches indirectly to person and the information
content is transported as data to receiver. Even if another person,
who hears that fire breaks out in the same forest in the news on
the radio, reaches the same reality perception, this indirect
reality perception exposes to manipulation substantially. Our
passive perception, that is used to hear consistently the
information from the same source albeit indirectly, is
conditioned to accept definitively all the reality scenarios
presented to it. Whereas strict traditional filter understanding
existing in producing the information, that is presented to
followers, makes accuracy of the truth debatable. The
information is consumed by the person before the information
transforms into data in communication occurring in the active
reality perception. By this means the number of layers caused
the information eroding is minimized as far as possible. In spite
of this every recorded phenomenon has the decrease risk of
perspective in the interferences on it by remaining limited with
opportunities of media that it is recorded. Under these
circumstances, certainly the fact that person will perceive the
phenomenon in point with his point of view by having a non-
objective perspective does not change the fact that there is not
an absolute sensing filter.
When media tools that are transmitted information to especially

wide regions are considered, the social and political dimensions
of the subject come up too. Sectors that try to reach the large
masses of the society and expressed as media bosses generally

take part in authoritative positions in society. Television media
conceived in the structure of Sender-Message-Receiver also
provides to share with the large masses with the following
broadcasting by gathering ongoing realities in the world in a
single source. Television media records the realities with the
observation of person who perceive actively by transforming to
data in the written, auditory and visual formats and gathers
information. Data reaching to broadcasting centre by being
filtered a stage by the active detectors, are subjected to filter a
few more times depending upon criteria of broadcast selectors.
All the filtered information achieve to reach to the large masses
over broadcasting channel of TV media. The masses, that
perceive realities passively in the face of the screen in their seats
at home, incorporate things presented to them in their world of
reality by apprehending them as reality.
Reality perceptions procured actively thanks to sharer mentality

that internet provide without social discrimination between
individuals and knowing no geographic bounds can reach to
human information in process of package in the four corners of
the world by being transformed into data rapidly. In contrast
with television, the most important diversity that the internet
media provides is that a large number of perspectives can
provide the independent contents about the same reality
perception. Independent news media, which develops by being
gained in popularity, reach the dimension that will challenge
with media giant of today with the voluntary content producer
in different places of the world.
Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, who noticed that it needs to be

created a different organization structure from ongoing
perspectives in order that an independent media can exist,
realized a project named Wikipedia in 2001. Wikipedia ,that
becomes one of the most known and used source of the world
after a very short time, Wikipedia provides to be interpreted the
realities out of an authoritative and omnipotent line with its
self-autonomous management structure. Wikipedia that is not
produced news content actively has a content that the large
masses find encyclopedic answers to things that they wonder
132 Data-Reality
with its more sluggish tempo in proportion to news portal. Mine

of information transforming into collective intelligence has been
developed as a system constantly opening to change and
progress. Validity of information in Wikipedia is based on not
only the sense of reality of information provider but also
comments of the other man who has information about the
subject. This repository that was come up by collective
intelligent is used at the academy as a source that has scientific
validity today.
In terms of the content that it presented, Wikileaks is another

information environment becoming popular by 2000s.
Wikileaks, an organization claimed that Julian Assange founded,
display activity about revealing some findings concealed from
the societies. Concealed informations in high international
security that he reveals are presented transparently to the whole
world via the website. Wikileaks that caused to break out the
international politic crisis was proclaimed as an unwanted
organization by the many country governments. In spite of all
this negative reactions, Wikileaks continues to present liberally
the concealed realities to people with its basic opinion based
upon philosophy that information should be shared liberally.
While existent realities are concealed from the societies in
process of some data by administrative authorities, with its
activities creating leaks in this data reservoir, Wikileaks has an
important mission in terms of creating a transparent society.
When the records of realities stored as data are converted into

perceivable formats for people, manipulations that will be made
in the contents of generated Medias caused to come up the deep
suspicions about the authenticity of reality. The reason for the
point that technological opportunities reach today, our visual
perceptions slogs on recognizing that which one is real or not.
Many advanced software used for manipulating the visuals that
is produced digitally produce highly effective solutions about the
manipulation of content. Contents of audiovisual media, that is
produced factitiously, make proving the truth of presented
realities difficult. Technology creates its reality by the way of
some generated methods. The efforts making reality blurred like
witchcraft and magic that are impressed the people in the past
transform into a simple activity of the technology anymore. The

major reality keeping as data can direct a reality that does not
exist by manipulating technologically. Data recreates the reality.
Mobile phones used commonly today thanks to developing

technological progresses as well as they used as phone, they
transform into the smart devices with their recording functions
such as camera and microphone on them. The users of these
devices supplied with the feature of video and audio recording
can achieve to record the events that they see easily. Thanks to
this, millions of video and audio recordings are made in a day.
These recorded realities are shared with the large masses on the
social Medias such as Facebook, Twitter.
In the present day that the social networking sites are the
indispensable parts of the technological lives, the collective
structure of the Facebook Networking Site, which reached the
highest number of members in the world, brought up a
significant situation worth to examine. If the Facebook was a
country with its number of the users, it would have a population
to be the third largest country of the world after China and India.
Facebook which is enriched by the contents that the users
created voluntarily became a source having the richest content in
the world without taking any primary role in providing contents.
Facebook which is an example of the production of the
collective intelligence rapidly gained value in the exchange
market as a capital and turned into a company whose shares are
sold in the market. Facebook, whose users don’t have a voice in
economical terms, owns one of the richest economies of the
world.
But the striking factor in the Facebook example is that the only
factor forming the system is not the human. The contents that the
users inserted in the system are organized by the programmed
systems, the relations structure between the contents is formed
and thus personal content is submitted. There is a situation that
the people are in compliance with the information processors in
the Facebook Networking Site in terms of collective
intelligence. Thus, the capacity of the intelligence that the
human beings have is amplified together with an information
134 Data-Reality
repository system which is developed outside the human

intelligence. The people can reach much more people, keep the
records of the information related to the people they reach and
access to various information that they want in the system
related to those people when necessary. The association of
technology and human intelligence which is established thanks
to the information processors facilitates the developments in
amplifying the human intelligence. The information processors
provide a number of opportunities to organize and understand
the information revealed, beyond being an interface platform
which provides the communication among the individuals. John
B.Smith says related to the intelligence amplification in his book
named "Collective Intelligence in Computer-Based
Collaboration" that:
The view of collective intelligence as a form of behavior made

possible by some form of mediating computer system places it
within the general tradition of intelligence amplification. This
perspective takes the position that computer systems can be
developed that partially mirror human mental functions; thus, by
increasing the capacity or speed of operation of those functions,
these systems can thereby increase or amplify the mental
capacity of the human user working with them. 79
79 Smith, John B. (1994) Collective Intelligence in Computer-

Based Collaboration, CRC Press; 1st Edition, p4
135
Data-Reality
Technology continuously changes form and progresses rapidly

along the path of becoming an unavoidable part of our lives.
Yet, at the point it has reached today, technology is an important
part of the human civilization that has established a systematical
order. When humanity has become aware of her own body and
has decided to do something with it, she has achieved through
technology what she has not been able to accomplish before
through her own power or abilities. Blending her existence with
the doctrine of continuous progress, humankind has canalized
her system of thinking apparatus into technological progress.
Advancement is one of the primary food sources of technology.

A civilization approach always pursuing advancements, with a
rational viewpoint, has never abandoned asking for more.
However, more does not always mean better. Being better, due
to criteria it brings along, puts forth an objective structure of
understanding.
With its different dimensions, technology is not a mere closed

box to get and look into. Structurally having formed a helical
association with human existence, technology confronts us with
its ever-deepening aspects when approached along the analyses
of its building blocks. Being materialized through definition and
description, technology has been influenced conceptually by the
metamorphoses experienced by many concepts nowadays and it
has possessed a much over-interpreted content. Although when
approached along the analyses of its forms of utilization, the
definitions pertaining to the emerging technology concept
encompass common characteristics, the definitions also put forth
a series of arguments in which different dimensions would be
involved.
Throughout the book, definitions fabricated on technology

existing in literature establish a multifaceted ground for the
comprehension of human technology relation. The conclusion
arrived at by the thesis through definitions is that technology is
the soul of materiality. According to this understanding,
136 Data-Reality
technology is not an object with material content. Technology is

a form of understanding and it is conceptual.
When its one-to-one relations to humankind are examined,

various frameworks proposed as polarized viewpoints of the pair
present us the contents of the concept of technology, being
endeavored to be defined, focusing on the human factor. Except
the opinions put forth on analyses (tried to be) carried out
through deterministic viewpoints, the Active Network Theory,
with its dialectic understanding and phenomenological view
reflects a mediating line in terms of human-technology
relationship.
In addition to the conceptual discussions, with its dimension

bringing human-technology neighborhood closer in terms of
physical distances, the subject of human body and technology
association has brought upon various discussions on the
perception of the factors of the relationship. In our day,
technology has now started modeling a new human model. In
terms of both body and mind, humanity exhibits significant
differences with respect to who it was before technology. In
addition to the interactions emerging through physical forms,
when experienced frequently the use of technology also
differentiates human behavior. A view that is taken over all
these contexts of relationships points to the fact that humanity is
experiencing a new reality adorned with technology. The world
that we live on and we view with our eyes is not the same old
world any more. With its structure enabling distances becoming
relatively small, the world changes dimensions continuously.
The bigness or smallness of the world is no longer a valid
argument.
Being dependent on materials, technology has carried away to

other dimensions the reality that exists for humankind. Surreal
phenomena we sometimes perceived as illusions have now
become an important part of daily lives at a place easily
accessed by people. Transforming into a visual feast, the world
is trying to impose on people other realities framed by
technological simulations. Although some masses try in vain to
Data-Reality 137
adopt being lean or remaining natural, technology – human

synergy has influenced deeply the format of the world.
Bibliography 139
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5 Milton Stories (For the Witty, Wise and Worldly Child), Sofia Fasos Korahais
Che Guevara and the Economic Debate in Cuba, Luiz Bernardo Pericás
Grey Ecology, Paul Virilio
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Philosophy of Culture, Schopenhauer and Tradition, Wolfgang Schirmacher
Talking Cheddo: Teaching Hard Kushitic Truths Liberating PanAfrikanism,
Menkowra Manga Clem Marshall
Teletheory, Gregory L. Ulmer
The Tupperware Blitzkrieg, Anthony Metivier
Vilém Flusser’s Brazilian Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, Vilém Flusser

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Beyond the Boundaries of Human Body 63

I express my gratitude to Prof. Siegfried Zielinski, for his

I am deeply indebted to my son Kaya for his full support in

Human-technology relation is experiencing a period of profound

Besides the reciprocal relationship between humans and

social impacts of human-technology (technology-human)

Imprisoning all the other beings except humans behind cages,

continuously to move faster and as if all of these were not

Under the use of humanity, technology has nourished on the

Advancing without allowing any time for our questioning,

its capacity by receiving external support. Facing the eyes we

The structure of chaos and order changes the rhythm of life of

The relations referred to concerning the human-technology

second section, technologies corporealized within the context of

Legitimation of knowledge has undergone substantial changes in

By means of the proliferating structure of the age of information

Today, the habit of digging information up from encyclopedias

and providing us with the most common information

As words are used frequently and as they proliferate, they are

Ctrl (Command)+C and Ctrl (Command)+V. What sort of

are detained and where phenomena are expressed through

When we view from a wider frame, it could even be stated that

Since online media are capable of frequent updates, the

Today, one of the most popular publishing on the new word

method of communication, with its synthetic structure developed

Although, due to its common use, it frequently appears before us

But what is "technology"? If we look with even a

and to represent progress.1

Advance and constant progress are among most notable

According to theory of numbers, a basic mathematical theory,

1 C. Scharff, Robert & Duse, Val (Ed.)(2003), Philosophy of

This structure makes us adopt the norm of order relation in daily

Do we have to progress? When will mankind be content with his

In order to exemplify Kline's statement, one can apparently find

about the Information Technology, we are reaching to an

If we look at the historical development and the etymological

Now since architecture is an art and is essentially

According to the paragraph above, the art is essentially a

2 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Retrieved Apr 12th, 2012

production grounds on a logical basis. Art is, in the most general

Having been impressed deeply by the Ancient Greek

The word stems from the Greek. Technikon means

According to Heidegger, Technology is a mode of discovery. By

Techne is a mode of aletheuein. It reveals

3 Heidegger, Martin, (1982). The Question Concerning

Instrumental and Anthropological View

Although based on the past and related to the etymological

The current conception of technology, according

This definition, acknowledging technology as a human-invented

[...] modern technology too is a means to an end.

into the right relation to technology. Everything

Lorenzo Simpson proposes a definition close to Heidegger’s

and products whose aim is to control and transform7. Simpson,

A common definition of technology would refer to

Is technology really a human invention? Are there no other

7 Nye, David E. (2007), Technology Matters The MIT Press,

Certainly, the concept of instruments exists within a more

The external employment of an unattached or