Hello ToKers:

Over the weekend an old friend of mine posted a link to Gregg's PT  
blog/articles and I was lucky to catch him before he left town.  We  
had a chance to talk yesterday when he generously invited me to join  
this fascinating group . . . !!

As I typically do when I'm in new place like this, I dig into the  
archives and, among many other things, this is what I found, "A  
central theme of this society is on how the human technology interface  
is going to change the landscape and essence of our beings in the next  
50 years."  Yes, that was Gregg speaking about an article in Atlantic  
by Henry Kissinger.  As it turns out we know HA(n)K pretty well (even  
scanned his unpublished Harvard senior thesis, "The Meaning of  
History"). . . <g>

I suspect the what-does-technology-do-to-us? topic will be the one  
that I can contribute the most about, since I run the Center for the  
Study of Digital Life and our Mission Statement says, "We believe that  
digital technologies have generated a new psycho-technological  
environment, previously unknown to humans, which has already  
fundamentally reshaped our behaviors and attitudes."

www.digitallife.center

I'm a 70 year-old "strategic adviser" whose career was mostly in the  
computer industry and on Wall Street and the Center's co-founder is a  
retired Naval Intelligence officer, so you could say that we've seen  
the world (go round and round).  My father was a historian of ancient  
mathematics and a protege of Norbert Wiener and together they coined  
the term "Cybernetics" in 1946.  My undergraduate major (for a while)  
was "neuro-psychology," before I left pre-med and settled on  
"evolutionary genetics" and "Buddhist theology" (UW-Mad, 1970),  
followed by two never completed DD/PhDs: Theology (UofChicago) in  
Molecular Biology (UW-Mad).

I will hold off on making any substantive posts until Gregg returns  
from his well-deserved vacation but, as a preview, I was the "last  
student" of Julian Jaynes and have more recently been collaborating  
with Merlin Donald, the evolutionary neuro-psychologist who made  
Jaynes' work academically "respectable."

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.julianjaynes.org_conference_&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=9KOrOw8VYrS59RkDzhFNOTOtg4V9wXhLgENi9QPbUGE&s=OZypC73FzjDnOcvfLXuhS2zus1JyMPN7ptF7kK5qQY0&e=

When Gregg gets back, perhaps we can have a conversation about their  
work -- particularly the likelihood that we are now in a "fourth  
stage" in our cognitive evolution as a result of digital technology .  
. . ??

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Origins-2DModern-2DMind-2DEvolution-2DCognition_dp_0674644840&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=9KOrOw8VYrS59RkDzhFNOTOtg4V9wXhLgENi9QPbUGE&s=KG9JGQx-mYb6gSDO8iXXM347yEEIXCm5QIjUTNWD2G8&e=

Best,

Mark

 

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