"Technological Tether" and Intelligence, by Kelly Moody

Even the most in tune have 'technological tether.'
I was thinking about the term that Dr. Redick used in class today that was coined by one of his former students referring to our need for technological extensions to venture off into the wild. This made me think about a lot of facets in my life surrounding this idea of 'need' that humans have given value to objects, instruments, materialized comforts (like journaling, poetry, that form of communication) etc. In my Human Adaptation class, I am having a hard time not questioning the phylogeny of the hominid marked by obvious morphological differences but also by the hominid's use of instruments and the development of forms of consciousness alluded to by cave art signifying archaic religion or flowers found in a grave signifying mourning of the dead(and also religious beliefs). All of these archaeological finds are glimpses of the past where vast assumptions are made about large numbers of people over a large amount of time. I've discussed this more in a last post. But back to the 'technological tether.' This technological extension, aid, limb, whatever you want to refer to it as, is considered in anthropology a sign of intelligence! Dependency on inanimate objects to survive, the ability to materialize and transform things separate from ourselves, to record things, making our esoteric ponderings exoteric material expressions that we can attempt to transmit to others. My problem with this is the information lost in translation is crucial to our existence. Our minds get too much for us, we must extend those thoughts and functions with 'technological tether' in order to communicate with each other. Okay so it morphs our communication skills, aside from the debate that this technique is an object of increased intelligence and consciousness, how about the implications of this dependency in a modern sense. This is a constant subject of discussion in my Technology, Self and Society class. We have molded our technology to the point that it is reciprocal. Technology molds us too, and on and on..we are technology now. Just like the hiker realizing his need for extensions when his pack breaks--we can't live without these things. Are we more intelligent, or better off with this technological tether, like most anthropologists believe? Or are we disabled by our dependency? Even the poet Han Shan, years and years alone in the woods on Cold Mountain, a wise secluded Bodhisattva, wrote down his poetry on rock faces and caves. Even he, immersed in nature, had his own technological tether to keep him sane in the wild in the form of poetic expression.