EFTA00607427.pdf

"ONE OF THE YEAR'S McLuhan was hospitalised after being operated on for the removal of a brain BEST FILMS" tumour. "And all those years we thought about the brilliance and we thought it was just Marshal l7Ted said. "But it was "STUNNINGLY ORIGINAL" the pills he was taking for symptoms of what turned out to be the tumour.- IN I noticed that Martin Rees and "DYNAMITE" "POWERFUL" THI OVAIrDian Richard Dawkins avoided talking about themselves and wondered if there might be something cultural - ie British - at work here? an ***L .** Irishman and so can say this! "EXQUISITE AND EMOTIVE. `Edge is not for everybody. It helps A MUST SEE" to know some stuff. But you won't **JAG?" find arrogance in "DARING AND STYLISH" the responses' JBActually not. In this regard. the "RIVETING" major challenge is to get ISO to 200 of the most brilliant people in the world to follow a simple set of guidelines. And one of the pronouncements this *kinoes** **** year is: -No anecdotes about spouses. significant others. kids. family pets." The reason for this prohibition is that Edge is a conversation - it's not a *ICS* John Brockman with Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan In the magazine written for the public. The audience for the contributors to Edge is the other contributors. The readers "CAREY MULLIGAN IS Factory.1966. Below. four of the Edge members whose have the opportunity to look over the shoulders of some extraordinarily STARTLINGLY BRILLIANT" thoughts on the inter net are gifted individuals as they go back and included in Brockman's new forth in the battle of ideas. And since book (from left): Brian Eno. the scientific method is central to our Freeman Dyson. Steven activities. I want to avoid the personal Pinker, Marina Abramovk. and focus on evidence. IN I was pleased to see quite a lot about the "collective IQ- of the net - which is something that the mainstream media don't seem to understand at all. A passage in William Calvin's essay where he talks about the net enabling us to "stand on the shoulders of a lot more giants at the same time" reminded me of an older metaphor coined by. I think, Doug Engelbart. who invented the mouse, windowing interfaces and a lot of other seminal computing technology: "Power steering for the mind". JB One of the concepts that people were talking about in the late 60s was "the collective conscious". McLuhan made specific reference to it on many occasions. Cage used to talk about "the mind we all share". The cultural anthropologist Edward T Hall. who was this crowd and to the book. This met him during the 60s. his manner in that circle, and studied what he called is interesting because for more and the way in which he presented the silent languages of time and space. than a decade his name was hardy himself were remarkable and never to once pointed out to me that our most mentioned. He certainly was an be forgotten. Sitting down at lunch. you significant. mast critical inventions influence on me in terms of my would he faced with machine gun-like were not those ever considered to he intellectual development and career. In expositions of facts and ideas ranging inventions. but those that appeared to one typical conversation. he recounted front medieval classical literature to he innate and natural. his ideas on how psychoanalysis had arcane scientific matters concerning His candidate for the most gone the way of the gods and we the aural space of the native North important invention was not the were in a new realm where we were American Eskimos. the focus of the capture of fire. not the printing press. looking at the evolution of patterns and work of his collaborator Edmund not the discovery of electricity. not information. A lot has been written Carpenter. the discovery of the structure of about the differences between atoms It was Carpenter who explained to DNA. Our mast important invention and hits. hut the first time I heard it me what he thought was the secret was... talking. This was something was front Marshall. For anyone who behind Marshall's brilliance. At the time. considered innate and natural. or actually something that was probably never even considered. the internet, from John Brockman's new book until the first human rendered it visible by saying: "We're talking" - probably an important moment in know a few basic things about anindividual competes for it with everything else we our evolutionary past. before meetinghim or her.Internet dating do. A lot of what It offers is high-quaity The internet is such a new sites. chatroonn, socialnetworking sites competition. But unfortunately a lot of invention, a code for the collective provide these details.enabling the modern what it offers is merely good at capturing conscious or-distributed networked human brain to pursue more comfortably our attention and provides us with little intelligence". The Internet is our its ancestralmating dance. of long-term import — sugar-filled collective externalised mind. I think CAREY MULLIGAN Then there's the issue of privacy. carbonated sodas for our mind. of it in terms of the concept of feedback: Some are myst ifiedby the way others. We. or at least I. need tools that will the infinite oscillation of our collective particularly the young. so frivolously provide us with the Diet-Internet. the conscious interacting with itself. reveal their intimate Totes on Facebook. version that gives us the intelectual adding a fuller, richer dimension to Twitter. inemails and via other internet btoards. Yet for miffions of years oLr forebears had almost no privacy. With the Internet. we are retuming to this practice of shared community. caffeine that lets us achieve what we aspire to. but which doesn't turn us intohyperactive intellectual jLnkies. JUDITH RICH HARRIS what it means to he human. It's not about computers. It's not about what music your friends arc listening to. It's about human communication. "We're talking." SHAME So for me. the intemet has only Independent Investigator and theoretician magnified — on a grand scale— what I How is the Internet Changing the Way already knew about human nature. The internet dispenses information the You Think?. edited by John Brockman, RODNEY BROOKS Panasonic professor of robotics. way a ketchup bottle dispenses ketchup. At first. there was toolittle: now. there is too much is published by Atlantic Books. John Naughton's From Gutenberg to Zuckerherg What You Really Need IN CINEMAS FRIDAY MIT Computer Science and Artificial Inbetween. there was a halcyon interval to Know About the Internet is g Intelligence Lab of just- enoughness.For me. it lasted published by Quercus Books. To buy about 10 years. either titlefora specialprice with free The intemet is stealing our attention. It They were the best years of my life. UK call 0330 333 68470r go to gua ianbookshop.co.uk The Okerver 08.01 12 THE NEW REVIEW 15 EFTA00607427