On Supernatural Techniques
Series on Arnold Gehlen
This time, in my series of reports on Arnold Gehlen’s Man in the Age of Technology, I’d like to talk about his third essay. For me, it was the most fascinating so far. In it, he discusses our magical thinking in the light of what he calls supernatural technology.
Modern Technology
What’s different in modern times compared to the Middle Ages, for example, is the central position of technology. This is even more true in our contemporary times. The whole world revolves around new technologies that come onto the market every day. Nowadays, daily life is not imaginable without the digital anymore. It is as if things like social media are part of our social needs.
Even more unique to our times is the fact that our self-conceptualisation is becoming more and more technical. A trend that seems to have even started in Gehlen times with cybernetics. Not surprising that this trend can still be seen in newer evolvements, including cognitive science, neurology, and inspiring artificial intelligence through the origins of our own intelligence.
But now comes the interesting point! As discussed in the previous post, this qualitative difference of technology in modern times came with the cult we created around science. Until then, magic was way more central to society. It’s really that recent actually because it is not just about rain dance from shamans but also, as Gehlen mentions, witches and magicians were still around in the Middle Ages. This is kind of weird when you think about the Middle Ages being monotheistic times.
Even more so, he also gives an example where magic still exists in his times and our times, too! That is astrology, which still takes the place of describing nature in terms of supernatural phenomena.
What is magic?
Gehlen defines it here as undertakings to create advantageous change for humans by manipulating the path of things to our service. But isn’t that what technology is also about? Creating technology to our advantage? Manipulating natural forces to our service? So that’s what we are getting at: magic can be seen as a precursor of technology and can thus be defined as “supernatural technology”.
The analogy goes even further. Magic existed throughout the times around the globe. It doesn’t matter if magic is for the weather of fertility. It was always sort of trying to “repair” the natural order that was disrupted by something. As if we assumed some kind of automatism of nature that must be restored. On the other hand, this certifies a human need for environmental stability.
This fascination for recurring events or automatism is what we can still find in machines today.
Resonance Phenomenon
Gehlen calls this human attraction to automatism a resonance phenomenon. Humans are constantly trying to define themselves by what they are not. So, we try to find the automatism that is inside us on the outside. Our own body is full of automatism, which keeps us alive. Automatism outside us then gives us a mirror that we can use to understand ourselves. A phenomenon that we can see in religious theories of the origins of humans: human-like gods that create us in their image.
It’s interesting that this scheme of seeing the whole course of the world as magic (or supernatural technology) is already a kind of “big automatism” which must be adjusted and repaired when getting feedback from disrupted phenomena.
Concluding, the fascination for automatism and, therefore, modern machines stems from our need to self-conceptualise. A need that needs outside and is therefore objectifying nature. This allows us to interpret our surroundings according to our own image while also understanding ourselves better through the image of the world around us.
