By: Jan

Jan — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:19:25 +0000

Dear Olia,
Amazed to have found this post on Engelbart and Thierry Bardini’s book. I’ve been a great fan and admirer of Engelbart since the 80s, and recently corresponded with Thierry, when I came across his comments to the Engelbart Book Dialogues blog, http://engelbartbookdialogues.wordpress.com/ . It was only then that I found out about his (TB’s) book “Bootstrapping”. I still need to get it. I am sorry I missed getting hold of a signed edition of the Engelbart book, that still lives in the form of the blog, maintained by Valerie Landau and Eileen Clegg. Anyway, I got kind of hooked to the concept of augmentation, set off against automation. But I am still wondering if my interpretation of it has anything to do with Engelbart’s at that time. It’s strange, just as it was almost inconceivable in the 60s to think of computers as personal devices connected up in a network, it’s almost as inconceivable now to go back 40 years, displace your mind and really know what and how Douglas Engelbart was thinking. It’s a kind of anthropologist’s paradox.
Funny you mention dancing. I have this idea that movement, creativity, emotion are all strongly related, and that the source of all things human are to be found there. There are scientists who have been finding actual evidence of this in the brain.
The car (I agree with your irritation about car metaphors) is a means whereby a human achieves unprecendented movement, a unique response to the urge of not wanting to be here, while in transit, and our interactions with this machine are similar to the articulatory movements in the mouth when we utter speech. The ultimate means of movement connected to the earth actually is the motorbike, as it allows you to articulate the landscape, and gives the thrill of hitting a line in front of you that your brain is constantly laying down ahead. Nobody understands how our brain does that, but neurological scientists like Rodolfo Llinas, William Calvin, and Oliver Sacks, are trying to find explanations. I found the connection with William Calvin in George Dyson’s “Darwin among the Machines”, which I devoured.
Anyway, sorry for too much incoherent rambling, I should know better. Another paradox is that web2.0 creates movement of knowledge, experience and ideas, unknown to man before, but at the same time it glues us to this whirring monster, thinking about how essential movement is.
Take care,
Jan

Comments on: Douglas Engelbart, the automobile and other analogies

By: Jan