I'd like to bring this conversation a little closer to the aspect of IA that
Joe Ransdell devoted most of his paper to, namely the process of genuine peer
review that is facilitated by Ginsparg's innovation in physics, which amounts
to cutting the gatekeepers out of the publication process, and thus
democratizing it.
Gary mentioned "flying to international conferences" as one of the benefits of
technology generally. Personally i would very much like to see an alternative
to air travel -- which is, after all, a major contributor to climate change --
in the form of a system that would allow conferencing over the internet, for
groups of (say) a dozen peers who could all meet (i.e. see and hear each other)
without leaving home, and without any special equipment beyond their laptops.
Surely the software and hardware to do this can't be far away, if it doesn't
exist in cycberspace already. Conferences usually have to "break into groups"
(or break for lunch) in order to have really good, productive conversations
anyway.
I think genuine dialogue among peers (in Joe's sense) takes place all the time
on peirce-l, but there are definite advantages to doing it in "real time", and
i think those advantages can be realized without having to move our bodies
thousands of air miles. I'm sure it would augment the intellligence of the
participants.
Gary F.
} Real time is the wheel reinventing itself. [gnox] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
-----Original Message-----
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf
Of Gary Richmond
Sent: December-16-11 5:52 PM
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO
COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION
Steven, Gene, Ben, Peter, List,
IA as contributing to the possibility of actual intelligence augmentation is a
mere goal of such visionary thinkers as Engelbart, Technology is a tool that
can be used wisely or poorly, as several have already noted. My friends who
teach in some of the better educated countries in Europe do not seem to have as
much of a problem with new technologies as is being expressed in this thread.
"The book" is itself the result of a new technology of the time, the printing
press, and its dissemination to many in especially the 19th and 20th centuries
was the result of the further advancement of that and other, related
technologies. Pre-computer/internet reading of books resulted in a very well
educated European population, but that did not keep Europe from falling into
two disastrous, finally, world wars.
The total dumbing down of, for example, the American population, I mean, the
American education system, also pre-dates computers. The 1%, it appears,
benefits from a dumbed-down population, the better to manipulate it through,
admittedly, especially the television media (think Fox "news"). That "vast
wasteland" of idiotic television programming was also a conscious decision by
corporate interests in the interest of making big profits. The principles and
practices of a hunter-gather society (which Gene has so beautifully articulated
in his books and articles) is nothing that we are going to regain as desirable
as it might seem to want to do so. It ain't gonna happen.
Meanwhile, many of us on this list enjoy our technological advances (I
especially am fond of modern plumbing), use the web rather well for research
purposes, enjoy flying to international conferences, etc., etc.--and regret
that some of these 'conveniences' are paid for at a cost which, in a vaguely
poetic way, I sometimes make equivalent to the suffering of much of the
population of Africa. The point for me is NOT to stop using these tools, but to
try to find ways to make educational, political-economic, infra-structural, and
other changes in the interest of benefiting individuals and society. I would
think that Peirce would have celebrated the new technologies, possibly have
contributed to them; but he would have deplored their misuse. On that point, at
least, I think we are all in agreement.
Best,
Gary
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