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Subject: Questioning Understanding
Sent: 4/19/98 3:26 PM
To: nicholas@media.mit.edu
Nicholas Negroponte
nicholas@media.mit.edu
How does one find resources to gain understanding when sources are limited and methods are nonexistent?
I am posing this question to you, as I myself am puzzled and hence, seeking input.
To elaborate, in reading not only your works, but those of McLuhan, Gilder, and others it becomes obvious that a common theme plays itself out. This theme, which is much more that a general optimism for the future, can only be described in my own terms as a philosophy. This philosophy seeks an understanding of how we act and react to all types of media that we create for ourselves and self-perpetuate. However, this philosophy has none of the traditional methods of understanding and teachings afforded to most other philosophies of our day. Raw sources (such as articles and editorials written by observers in Wired, Hotwired and other magazines; book and stories by Steven Levy and Clifford Stoll, as well as comments and business practices of Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs - just to name a few) are all that exist for this principle of thinking. There seems to be no philosophers - of my knowing - who exist to understand, comment upon, and bring together in cohesion these principles of the ``Philosophy of the Information Age.'' Even pop culture seems to recognize, catch onto, and perpetuate this philosophy as is evidenced by such movies as Sneakers and characters like Tom Collins in the musical Rent.
To take an aside and substantiate some of my comments I offer the following. Of course your own body of work, along with that of McLuhan, Gilder and others, offer insight into the future. Along with this insight these works offer themselves as a base of understanding about the impact that medias and technology wield on the future. That of Steven Levy and Clifford Stoll can be seen as studies of people acting on a variation of this philosophy (i.e. the mind and spirit of a computer hacker/cracker). As well Silicon Snake Oil, also by Stoll, can be seen as a test that this new philosophy must undertake to validity itself by adding (or while simultaneously and necessarily adding) actual value to the lives of others. The atmosphere of companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Motorola (among others) shows a growing pattern of thinking that on one level of course reflects that of their founders, but on another level it also shows us what new business methods are forth coming. It is evident, that technologies are taking root, first at their places of origin (companies such as Apple, Microsoft, etc..). Hence, they should be held up and viewed of as a model for what changes - beneficial as well as harmful - are to come for the rest of the business world. Lastly, pop culture with its modest function of endowing our collective social "common sense" with understandings of our world, offers the following:
The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or
energy, or money. It's run by little ones and
zeros, little bits of data, its all just electrons...
...There's a war out there...A world war, and
it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's
about who controls the information. It's all
about the information.
This quote from Sneakers should sound familiar, since it coveys the same main theme you stress in Being Digital; that of the important distinction between bits and atoms. Even in a pop culture success, such as the musical Rent, one of the characters, Tom Collins muses ``Well I'9m thwarted by a metaphysical puzzle...I teach computer age philosophy, but my students would rather watch TV.'' A statement that sums up this day and age of our society, and ironically, this letter as well. But still does no one teach, nor study, this philosophy and its importance to human societies?
I am obviously not the only one to notice, and come to this conclusion: a new way of thinking and acting has come about. Is it now the time to study who and what influenced this philosophy? Why have I not found sources, of any type, that compares and analyzes these various permutations of a common theme? Am I looking in the wrong places or do they, as of yet, not exist? How can one learn to understand, if no place or forum exists, and no methods are taught to help yield understanding?
Hence, as stated before this is a letter to you, looking for your input, in my attempts to solve this perplexing quest for both information and understanding. Are there any forums, classrooms, writings, etc. that take a comprehensive approach to this philosophy? If they do exist, where are they? If they do not exist, how does one go about creating them, or is there a deeper reason as to why the do not exist?
I am looking for a starting place that will allow me to move closer to answering some of the question I have posed here. Your time and assistance is appreciated.
Paul Weinstein
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