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Occasionally you come across the work of someone you've never heard of, but whose interests curiously parallel your own. Tonight I came across Kristóf Nyíri's 1993 essay "Thinking with a word processor," which asks, "in what ways, if any, are our thoughts affected by the shift from the pen or the typewriter to a word processor?" The relationship between information technologies (very broadly understood), cognition, and perception is an especially difficult one to get at-- starting with arguments about what constitutes "technology," "cognition," and "perception," and moving on from there-- and it's one that some of my favorite recent authors (like Andy Clark and Michael Chorost) have thought about. Nyiri's conclusion:
But what is it really, I would like to ask by way of conclusion, we think "with" when we think with a word processor?... [O]ne of the fundamental Wittgensteinian discoveries [was] that mental phenomena cannot be identified independently of Umstände, of the broad story within which they occur.... So what are the characteristics of the context, of the circumstances, under which we say that we are thinking - with a word processor? What kind of language game is: "thinking with a word processor"?
When we think with a word processor it is a synchronous intellectual exchange with fellow thinkers all over the world we are, ultimately, engaged in. So what are we thinking with when we think with a word processor? The word "with" here, I conclude, does in the last analysis point not to instrumental application - but to human companionship.
Nyiri has since gone on to head a project on the mobile information society in the 21st century:
While in all areas of life we witness a radical increase in the demand for mobile communications, questions as regards further directions of development are at many points open, and need to be addressed by the social sciences. The mobile telephone is by now more than merely a device to transmit voice. It has become a multi-purpose data transmitter – a mobile companion.
Basically, the man's becoming a futurist, though his work remains as grounded in philosophy as mine in STS. It looks like it could be a very interesting project: it's generated five volumes of essays so far, and I have to have some respect for anyone who's willing to argue that
[T]he mobile telephone need not necessarily be anathema to the spirit of Heideggerian romanticism. For the mobile phone is not just the most successful machine ever invented, spreading with unheard-of speed; it is also a machine which corresponds to deep, primordial human communicational urges. The phenomenon of the mobile phone constitutes an obvious challenge to philosophy, and indeed to the humanities.
--or even think to raise the question, "does the cellphone constitute a challenge to Heideggerian romanticism, or doesn't it?"
They're doing a conference on the philosophy of telecommunications convergence this fall. Maybe I'll try to whip up a proposal, though I doubt I'll actually get it done.
Technorati Tags: collective intelligence, philosophy, technology, writing
Interesting online exhibit of old technologies, produced by students at the Interaction Design Lab at the University of Dundee. The names alone are fascinating historical-contemprary blends: the Richophone, Acoustograph, Social Communicator, and Radio Hat, among others.
Technorati Tags: end of cyberspace, history
A few days ago, David Pescovitz threw out a term for the end of cyberspace that I like: Web No Point Oh (No.0). (A quick Web search reveals one other use of the term Web No.0, but in a very different context.) All my best turns of phrase come from David.
This was sparked by two things: a reporter who's doing a story about Web 3.0, and word from a friend in Denmark that he's found references to "Web N.0," with N ranging between 2 and 38.
But this assumes a model of interacting with "the Web" that calls attention to said Web. The Web won't go away, but our interactions with it will become more like our interactions with the electric grid: you don't interact with electricity (except under very unfortunate and occasionally terminal circumstances), and you don't really notice it unless it goes away; you interact with things that use electricity. Web No.0 will be the Web you aren't aware of, even as a piece of jargon to attract VC dollars.
Technorati Tags: end of cyberspace, Web 2.0
I did an end-of-cyberspace-and-what-it-means-for-products talk tonight for the Silicon Valley chapter of the Product Management Institute. It was a pleasant time, a good crowd and all (and I'm sure the chocolate-dipped fruit will be delicious), but this is the last talk on the subject I'm giving until I've finished the book.
I printed it all out this afternoon, and was pleased to see that it's starting to feel like a real book manuscript. It's up to about 125 pages, and is about half finished; suddenly, it feels possible to write the rest.
Last night I finished an article on the uses of science studies in futures research, and will send it off the the journal soon, to begin its long journey through the editorial python of academic publishing. The end is also in sight for my wife's book, which is due to the editors this month; there's still lots of caption writing and other stuff she'll have to do, but we can see the end of the tunnel.
Bottom line, I'll be able to clear enough space in my life to get back to working on this seriously. So: Next task will be to run through the manuscript, and map out the major revisions and additions. A couple of the chapters near the back are pretty sketchy, so I've got to outline those as well. Then it's just a matter of writing like Hell.
I figure I should be able to get this thing done by Christmas at the very latest, and preferably before my birthday in September.
Technorati Tags: books, end of cyberspace, work
Cyberspace is a "metaphor we live by," born two decades ago at the intersection of computers, networks, ideas, and experience. It has reflected our experiences with information technology, and also shaped the way we think about new technologies and the challenges they present. It had been a vivid and useful metaphor for decades; but in a rapidly-emerging world of mobile, always-on information devices (and eventually cybernetic implants, prosthetics, and swarm intelligence), the rules that define the relationship between information, places, and daily life are going to be rewritten. As the Internet becomes more pervasive-- as it moves off desktops and screen and becomes embedded in things, spaces, and minds-- cyberspace will disappear.
This blog is about what happens next. It's about the end of cyberspace, but more important, about what new possibilities will emerge as new technologies, interfaces, use practices, games, legal theory, regulation, and culture adjust-- and eventually dissolve-- the boundaries between the virtual and physical worlds.
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang is an historian of science and futurist.
Part of the Corante Innovation Hub.
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