Henry,
On 7/2/2010 7:11 AM, Henry Story wrote:
<snip>
Well, I am not so sure that we need to "rewire the brain of millions of
people." so much as we need to have our technologies adapt to them. Yes?
When it was discovered that the earth was round, the brains of everyone on
earth had to be rewired.
Of course people only selectively did that. Those who believed it and
understood the implications rewired the brains of just enough people so they
could make fortunes, colonise whole continents and rule the world for centuries.
Actually the "discovery" that the world was round, I assume you mean by
Columbus, is a myth. It was well know that the earth was round long
before then. The disagreement was about how large the earth was. As a
matter of fact Columbus had seriously under estimated the distance to
make the voyage.
Nor did he or any of the opponents to his voyage expect to discover a
new continent.
The most accessible account on the myth about the world being flat is
Umberto Eco's "Serendipities: Language and Lunacy." 1998 - See the
chapter "The Force of Falsity".
Hope you are having a great day!
Patrick
--
Patrick Durusau
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Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
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Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net
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