It does raise that calculator issue – and challenges us to reconsider again what do I or we really need to know?
Persistent enmeshed computer/connection. I keep thinking about the wireless eyeglasses that I will someday (10yrs) replace my computer. Actually just thought of a new name for it – “google goggles” Of course, all your normal computer functionality would be available. Probably would still need keyboards given that socially we don’t accept everyone taking their notes using voice recognition. On the other hand, we could be annotating recordings of meetings for our future reference – video traces integrated into wikis, organizers. Imagine 3-D clouds of knowledge, projects, knowledge, etc. – SLOODLE on steroids.
New ways of offloading memory? Memory is aided by speed – we recall things based upon our varied connections – when we talked with people, where we were located, who is referenced by the article, what class we were talking, what paper we were writing. Again, imagine if you could rapidly scroll – along different branches of context to see the variety of attached papers with your notes – not sure what this type of navigation device would look like. Then how would we use the memory freeded up by this.
A genetic model for developing new human intellectual capabilities. Andrew Morozov put forth a great theory in our Foundation of Cog Psych class – that the mental capacities of people have evolved as the tools we have developed allowed us to offload more basic mentally demands. What new capacities will we develop to take advantage of the new functionality we can outsource? Just as people used to take adult capabilities and believed that development was just a linear development of those individual capabilities, perhaps we have projected backwards historically that our mental capacities (beyond procedural thinking arising from new knowledge) were like the old development theories – historically we had the same mental faculties but in a limited fashion. What if the evolution of human mental development was also along the genetic (Piaget / Vygotsky definition of genetic) lines that we take for granted in childhood today? If so, then what does that imply about what may evolve. Perhaps, Connie Yowell and the ethnographic studies MacArthur is funding will not just discovering new ways of working with knowledge and expression among children but also new mental capabilities that mark new genetic evolution in mental functioning. I still have this imagine of a student I came to tutor one day who had about a dozen Instant Message windows open at the same time and had to end conversations rapidly with them so we could begin. Perhaps it is more than just parsing of attention but a new way of integrating conversation or being in community?
Drue…
