Laura Paquette - Earth as a Machine

 In class today, we discussed the topic of viewing the Earth as a machine. Sometimes we can view the world as a circuit board and see that all the circuits are in some way connected through a connecting point in the cosmic web. I believe it came from an essay, the idea of using a machine gives humans a machine heart and I would like to provide my reflection and questions on that. Furthermore, how it disconnects humans from the earth, not allowing us to remain in a sensuous connection with the world. 

I agree with the statement, that using machines gives humans a machine heart, and laugh at the irony of it, because machines, non-living thing, does not have a heart. I think that this means that to have a machine heart is to view all things, living or non-living, as assets to use for one's own benefit. This is shown in how humans can interact with nature. Sometimes, nature is seen as a pleasure to satisfy humans. Other times, it is a tool to be used and discarded once we're done with it. When we separate ourselves from the circuit board that is the world, we run into the problem that we highly depend on other circuits like nature for our survival. We need to take care to see that nature continues on existing well for the benefit of the world, not simply discarding it when we are done using nature. 


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