Hi Martin, It's interesting - I was just reading some of Ted Nelson's original ideas on hypertext in another window when I came back to my mail and then followed your link to the Andy Clarke article. Good God Nelson would like that I think. These ideas have been around for close to half a century in the computer science realm. Douglas Engelbart discussed this idea of the computer as prosthetic for the mind years ago. Mind is something that can extend out and meet other minds and work together in some realm that is so completely different we don't even really have a word for it (oh how the hackers hate when you call this cyber space - it is not bits of information, it is the mind as a flowing source of information, merging with different minds, branching off in different directions). But this vision of the mind actually seems to say it is possible to separate from the body, or we really don't get this whole mind body relationship thing. There is a great deal this new augmentation of the mind (which Engelbart talked about decades ago) is going to teach us about our minds and what it means to be human. Michael ________________________________ From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Martin Packer Sent: Mon 12/13/2010 6:16 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [xmca] Out of Our Brains "minds, like bodies, are collections of parts whose deepest unity consists not in contingent matters of undetachability but in the way they (the parts) function together as effective wholes. When information flows, some of the most important unities may emerge in integrated processing regimes that weave together activity in brain, body, and world." <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/out-of-our-brains/>__________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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