Gebser implies that as our consciousness unfolds, extending itself into thought, perspective (particularly) and awareness, we employ technology something like a projective prosthesis which we use both for tool-like purposes and to plumb the depths of our inner capacities through a process of exteriorization.

It has long been relatively clear to me that our technologies are representations of human, animal and natural capacities which are abstracted and hyperbolized. The result is being-abstracted-to-(hyper/hypo)function: machines.

What I find intriguing about Gebser’s view, which I paraphrase here to highlight my own concerns, is that he presents this process as one of inward discovery through exteriorization: by projecting our nascent inward capacities into technological analogs, we formally disclose their existence. We then acquire the opportunity to -retract the projection- in recognition of the capacity, which we may then proceed to develop. Not that this is all that common, of course. What usually appears to happen is that we become servants of the projections which we proceed to form behavioral compulsions around.

Gebser’s singularly uncommon idea matches, to some degree, my own experience in that I began to clearly see this process of projection during my own immersion in relatively technological contexts. It was not, however, clearly obvious to me that retraction might result in discovery and development, yet this has also been my experience.

The idea that we are somehow using technology to -discover- recondite sensing, perspective, relational and physical capacities conserved within ourselves and nature is novel to me (I thought of us as representing them rather than discovering them), but the idea that we might further retract our relationships with the projections and thereby begin to actively develop what they were abstractions of… is radical and thought-provoking.