Speech is telepathy. Writing is magic.
Magic
- Thread starter LearningToLetGo
- Start date
Language is magic for two reasons:
1) it gives us a method to model our thoughts in a very regimented and coherent fashion, and
2) it allows us to precisely replicate our thoughts in another person's mind.
With grunting and hand gestures I can imply meaning that you may infer, but with language I can say, "an oversized blue velvet teddy bear with a red fedora hat and white stockings is sitting on my cherry wood dresser, gazing out my window at the freshly fallen morning snow" and precisely place that exact thought in your head.
It's for this reason I call it telepathy. As for writing, well, these thoughts, once expressed, can live for generations to come. Words span the eons as easily as I cross the street.
Here we are, living with telepathy and magic and calling it mundane. How spoiled we are.
But let's move on to my true thesis. We've heard the word "transhuman" tossed about but have we articulated what "human" means?
For example we invented language. I assert that made us telepathic, albeit in a lossy and analog way. Was that a form of transhumanism? What of writing? It extended our fragile memory and allowed us to track many more variables with perfect precision than our native minds could hold. I call it magic but is writing not also a kind of transhumanism?
But such quotidian topics seem mundane. Let's push the envelope. What of that titanium knee you received last year, or that insulin pump? A medical miracle, but maybe also transhuman?
What of that phone you hold in your hand? It gives you instant access to the sum of human knowledge and allows instant simultaneous communication with at least half the human population. Is that not a form of mind/machine interface and perhaps also the first bonafide step in transhuman evolution?
My thesis is simply this: language was the first step towards becoming more than human. The process began milenia ago, back in the stone age or earlier. Our entire history is us becoming more than we naturally are. So where do we draw the line? How do we say, "This is enough, no more"?
For example we invented language. I assert that made us telepathic, albeit in a lossy and analog way. Was that a form of transhumanism? What of writing? It extended our fragile memory and allowed us to track many more variables with perfect precision than our native minds could hold. I call it magic but is writing not also a kind of transhumanism?
But such quotidian topics seem mundane. Let's push the envelope. What of that titanium knee you received last year, or that insulin pump? A medical miracle, but maybe also transhuman?
What of that phone you hold in your hand? It gives you instant access to the sum of human knowledge and allows instant simultaneous communication with at least half the human population. Is that not a form of mind/machine interface and perhaps also the first bonafide step in transhuman evolution?
My thesis is simply this: language was the first step towards becoming more than human. The process began milenia ago, back in the stone age or earlier. Our entire history is us becoming more than we naturally are. So where do we draw the line? How do we say, "This is enough, no more"?
Isn't writing simply the manifestation of what we have in our mind placed down on paper?
If writing was majic, then why did we all have to spend years in English classes to learn how to do it????
Me thinks you have taken this too literally.... or maybe not. HA.
Probably did! BUT.......that is what a "Literalist" does. Believe and accept what is actually said.