Gelertner

Gelertner

Tiera McAdam
Cami Nelson
WRTG 2010-090
3/4/10
Rhetorical Analysis-Computers and the Pursuit of Happiness
David Gelernters’ commentary, Computers and the Pursuit of Happiness, reaches out to those who engulf their lives in the use and presence of technology. Gelernter does stress that computers have done “marvelous things” yet it is only in keeping with the earlier industrial revolution. He argues that “we are not in an information age” and that technology, as in computers and the internet, are merely not a “revolutionary development of human history.” Gelertner attaches the simplicity of humans basic needs, food, clothing, shelter, etc, to counter argue what so called “counts” now, which is information.
Gelernters strikes the audience with various questions worth contemplating, this works as to make the answers, which he soon after gives, more powerful. Given Gelernters background, not only living in the information age himself but also as a professor of computer science, provides an opportunity to reference himself. Working as ethos, Gelernter mentions his book Mirror Worlds predicting that the “software revolution hasn’t begun yet, but it will soon,” leading on to say that there are only a few steps to take to get there. Gelernter adds pathos in connection to his idea by bringing in a “real” life character that can be used to relate to the audiences loved ones. In regards to computers, Gelernter recites a famous analogy “mind is to brain as software is to computer,” and states that in many ways is this wrong. He argues that software is portable, but minds are not, besides the obvious physical aspect, he also states that what makes “Schwartzs’ mind is the fact that it belongs to Schwartz.” Gelernter uses his own work The Muse and the Machine, as ethos, to bring forth the apparent difference between human mind and computer, the “cognitive spectrum” from “highly-focused” to an almost “hallucinatory thought,” and of course the presence of emotion....