I am convinced there is no hope for understanding the role of technology in today's world without our first learning to hold both sides of the truth in our minds, flexibly and simultaneously. The relationship between human being and machine has become something like a complex symbiosis. We and our mechanical offspring are bound together in an increasingly tight weave. But that is not quite all. For understanding is the basis of our freedom.
Freedom is admittedly a risky business.
We can , that is, finally descend to equality with our machines. This would be a fearful symmetry indeed, precluding the sort of understanding from which freedom arises and sealing off the escape from pure, mechanical determination. Throughout the following pages my arguments will retain a double edge. There is no essential contradiction here. A recognition of what has been determining us is the only basis for a responsible freedom.