Alphabetic writing visualized not the objects or the ideas of objects but speech itself. Viewing recorded speech meant seeing the “footprints” of thinking. A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect. The… Read More ›
Primary orality had some capacities for fragmenting—oral communication was naturally constrained by time and space. The digital flow is not. An excerpt from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect. Our life is immersed in… Read More ›
Written words—and especially letters—halted and disassembled the natural flow of experience, reassembling it into the intelligible structure—knowledge. An excerpt from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect. …Biologically, life is immersed in the flow of… Read More ›
A review of Paul Levinson’s “The Plot to Save Socrates” (2006). Time-travel stories are commonly used to explore questions of logic, ethics, philosophy, and social organization. Paul Levinson’s “The Plot to Save Socrates” (2006) adds media ecology to this set…. Read More ›
Primary orality – Craft Literacy – Phantom Literacy – Semi-literacy – General Literacy – Residual Orality – Secondary Orality (Electronic Orality) – Emancipated Authorship – Digital Orality – Digital Sensorium. An excerpt from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial… Read More ›
Historical periods have a distinctive temporal characteristic in their progression: each following historical period was shorter than the previous one. History accelerated because the change of media forced it. An excerpt from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age… Read More ›
Despite all the similarities between pirates and nomads, there was an aspect that distinguished them. Seafarers had to possess universal skills that could be required for survival when nobody was around. A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’… Read More ›
Both horses and ships gave their masters opportunistic (“tip-and-run”) superiority over sedentary cultures. A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect. (Previously in the chapter: The pirates of the Aegean and the opportunistic… Read More ›
Piracy prepared the Greek minds for the effects of the alphabet. This might explain why the alphabet effect in Greece was so instant and so transformative. A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet… Read More ›
Human as Media 