It helps, when thinking about digital technology differently, to look at a
\nbit of theory. In this case I want to highlight some theory about information
\nand how we use it in western culture.Although we may use digital technology
\nto do lots of different things, the most basic and culture-shocking thing we
\nfirst do is usually to re-arrange our own information flow, whether that information
\nis relate to work, personal business, or whatever. Also, since what we normally
\nthink of as “information” is subjected to the most rules and conventions
\nin our culture (compared to other forms of data that we might choose to digitize),
\nthen it is instructive to look at how digitization is affecting this form of
\ndata.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The three information ages. <\/em><\/p>\n Michael Hobart and Zachary Schiffman have argued, in their book Information \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Before the written alphabet there was, of course, “oral tradition”. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The first information age was the Classical Age<\/em>, marked by the invention \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Written language began when a semitic people called Akkadians had infiltrated \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n However, it was the Greeks who, once they adopted this written alphabet, invented \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Almost the entire body of Greek philosophy is built upon this development \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The second Information Age was called the The Modern Age of Numeracy<\/em>. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The rennaisance humanistic viewpoint was not sufficient to handle the explosion \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Descartes’ (and others’) development of mathematics depended on a greatly enhanced \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s difficult for us, at this point in history, to appreciate how different \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Calculus, which was separately developed in the late seventeenth century by \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n In Hobart and Schiffman’s words, “by the mid-eighteenth century, the mathematical \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Another, parallel, stream of scientific development during the development \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n We are now somewhere near the start of the third informaton age: The Computer \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n A full discussion of the current state of information theory as it is manifested \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Although we do not know the extent and direction that the new information age \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAges<\/strong>, that we are not, as commonly described, at the beginning of “the”
\ninformation age but that we are near the beginning of the third information
\nage since the rise of western civilization. Their argument is powerful and persuasive
\nand I recommend the book to anyone. However, for our purposes at least a summary
\nis necessary to understand some of theory behind my own arguments.<\/p>\n
\nHowever, we view oral Homeric culture with a bias. In our age we “abstract”
\ninformation from the “flow of experience” so we assume oral tradition
\nwas about using memory as containers of experience. Hobart & Schiffman suggest
\nthis is mistaken, there was no “information” as such in these cultures.
\nOral events were a “commemoration”, and they were not separated from
\nthe experience (Information Ages pg.15). Oral epics were participatory. The
\naudience became the characters and there was no abstraction. Therefore, there
\nwas no critical distance between the story and the audience and there was no
\nthinking! Alphabetic literacy freed the audience from this directness, and what
\nwas written could be seen as an object, and not just felt.<\/p>\n
\nof the written alphabet. Writing emerged as an extension of accounting techniques
\ninvolving tokens & emblems. Information came along after this. Hobart &
\nSchiffman here admit that the idea of a developing civilization with accounting
\nbut without information is counterintuitive (pg.38 ).<\/p>\n
\nSumeria and thus required Sumerians to use Sumerian script to render Akkadian
\nnames and language. “Whereas Sumerian is an agglutinative language… (Akkadian) denotes syntactic relationships… by declining nouns and conjugating verbs…(pg.44)”.
\nThis is a critical step in the transition from speech as pure information containers
\nto writing as the technology of communication.<\/p>\n
\n“information” and revolutionized thought for the next 1500 years.
\nThe genius of the Greek’s adoption of alphabet is that “the adaptation
\nof Phoenicion signs for the transcription of spoken Greek marks the final divorce
\nbetween writing and its pictographic origins (pg.68).” The Greeks got started
\ndown this road by using this new alphabet not for accounting (for which it had
\nbeen invented) but for writing down rules and laws (Burke & Orenstein: The
\nAxemaker’s Gift, pg.68).<\/p>\n
\nof thought and information. In fact “…Aristotle’s philosophy stands as
\nthe culmination of the first information age, for it seeks to define and systematize
\nthe mental objects that had been wrought by literacy”‘ (Hobart & Schiffman
\npg. 78). Aristotle used language to extract concepts from intuition and ultimately
\ngain knowledge. Two further quotes from Information Ages<\/strong> neatly
\nsum up the importance of this development of Greek philosophy: “By explicitly
\ntransforming intuitive extracts into concepts, we create information.( pg.81)”
\nand, “Philosophy thus functions to circumscribe the information born of
\nliteracy”(pg.84).<\/p>\n
\nGutenberg’s printing press caused an explosion in the availability of information
\nand eventually gave rise to the development of modern mathematics & physics.
\nThese relied on analysis, first used in mathematics, epitomized by Calculus,
\nand then extended to other sciences. It became the ‘age of knowledge’. In brief,
\nhere is how.<\/p>\n
\nof information that came along after 1500. By then the printing press had been
\naround for 50 years and the amount of books increased hugely. Rene Descartes
\nwas instrumental in finding a new way of thinking. He devised “clear and
\ndistinct ideas” as a foundation for his philosophy. Subsequently, his choice
\nof mathematical analysis led to our modern distinction between science and philosophy
\n(which in Descarte’s time were not separate).<\/p>\n
\n“numeracy”. The difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers is
\nimportant to understanding rise of numeracy. Numerical placeholding (or positional
\ncounting) has been called “the most successful intellecual innovation ever
\nmade on our planet” (Hobart & Schiffman pg. 122). Invented in India
\nin the 3rd millenium BC., it came to Europe through Moslems starting in 14th
\ncentury. By the 18th century this method of written numbers was the standard
\nand incorporated all the symbols & notation we use today. It allowed for
\nthe full use of our modern abstract mathematics which became an information
\ntechnology of its own and thus allowing the second information age.<\/p>\n
\nthis information tool was and how much it changed the ability to analyse physical
\n(and mathematical) problems. Descartes’ achievements “enabled one to move
\nback and forth between the worlds of space and algebraicized number”(Hobart
\n& Schiffman132). His formulas and mathematics referred to the relations
\nbetween things, rather than to things themselves. Thus mathematical equations
\nwere the only way to fully analyze and describe the range and diversity of information
\nthat became available during the rise of modern science.<\/p>\n
\nIsaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, allowed analysis of infinitesimally small
\nrates of change (down to the limit of contemporary measuring instruments), thus
\nresulting in the popular oxymoron ‘insantaneous rate of change’. By going beyond
\nthe static measurements of traditional mathematics and allowing the capture
\nin numbers of a “fleeting instant” it caused the separation between
\nwhat we can conceive and what we can imagine.<\/p>\n
\nachievements of Newton, Leibniz and a host of others had yielded the two critical
\ncomponents of the analytical vision and of the modern information age: formulas
\nand algorithms. (pg. 160)”<\/p>\n
\nof the modern age was the re-classification of knowledge and phenomenon according
\nto this same emerging scientific (and numeric) thought. Denis Diderot and Jean
\nLe Rond d’Alembert edited their Encyclopedia in 1751-1772. Its contents were
\n“… bound together with mathematical ‘chains of reasons.(Hobart &
\nSchiffman, 148)” The bedrock of the Encyclopedia was its new classification
\nof knowledge based upon mathematics, not the taxonomy of previous ages.<\/p>\n
\nAge<\/em>. Beginning with the development of symbolic logic by both George Boole
\nand Augustus de Morgan in the mid-ninteenth century there has been a steady
\nersosion of the hegemony of modern numeracy. With early twentieth century analogue
\ncomputers as a kind of “halfway step”, the further development of
\nlogic and calculating machines crested with the work of Alan Turing. Turing’s
\nuniversal computer design included a very important idea: “no essential
\ndistinction between numbers and operations on numbers” (Hobart &Schiffman
\n215). This means binary digits express three distinct features: binary numbers,
\nboolean logic, and instruction sequence [ the program]. These three features
\nare still the essential elements of the operations of today’s computers.<\/p>\n
\nin today’s computers is far beyond the scope of this essay. (However, some further
\ndiscussion of Information Play<\/a> may be interesting to some readers.)<\/p>\n
\nwill take us, there are a few things we can say for sure. It takes generations
\nto really see the full affects of each new age. Although it is easy to see that
\nnew technology allows us to do different things than we have done before, it
\nis not easy to see which are the things that will take us into the new age and
\nwhich are the things that are based upon the information idioms of the previous
\nage. Much of the purpose of the Digital Cobbler is to help us gain a mindset
\nto make this critical distinction.<\/p>\n