1. What Does It Mean To Be A Human Person?
2. How Do Human Beings Flourish?
3. What Does a Flourishing Society Look Like?
Technology is inseparable from being human. It accompanies our waking and our sleeping, our work and our worship, our recreation and rest, our being born and dying.
Because technology is so intimately woven through every sphere of human life, it makes it difficult to appreciate how much it shapes our basic perceptions of personhood, human flourishing, and what kind of society we want.
For this reason, we must ask probing questions about the implicit model of the human person assumed in our academic disciplines. Furthermore, we must interrogate our basic instincts about what it means for human beings to flourish individually and together in a society.
- Our Context
- Previous FSTI Lectures
Three Societal "Currents" Which Seem to Be Driving Technological Change:
- Aiming at Utopia
Our society believes that all our problems in the world are fundamentally technological dilemmas that can be solved with technological fixes.
We say: we need alternative diagnoses and treatments to promote a healthy society. - Efficiency
The governing logic of technology tends to assume that efficiency is the key to making the world better.
We say: efficiency is not the ultimate measure of technology. Efficiency must serve some higher goal. - Disembodied Interaction
Embodied, face-to-face communication and relationships are often seen as obstacles and hindrances to control and choice.
We say: it is difficult to overstate how foundational embodied face-to-face communication and relationships are for a good life. True flourishing depends upon being in one place, at one time.
Dr. Paul Rezkalla (Video):
Dr. Derek Schuurman (Video):
Dr. Brad Kallenberg (Audio):
Dr. Jonathan Lett (Audio):
The Faith, Science, Technology Initiative exists as part LeTourneau University's mission to form the next generation of Christians who are capable of working out answers to these questions in the technology they design and create.
