Yes, mind reading. But it’s not what you are thinking.
The telepathy I mean uses technologies for mind-to-mind communication. We experience this telepathy every day. We send our thoughts to other minds by writing letters on paper or the computer screen. We send our voice over the phone. Soon enough we may use direct neural links between our brains with the help of a computer. These are all examples of Technologically-Mediated Telepathy, or TMT for short.
I apologize if you came here looking for getting thoughts directly and without mediation from one mind to another in the science-fiction, ESP, fantastical sense.
This is what I do look at.
The phonetic alphabet was an unbelievably disruptive invention for both opening the mind to new ways to express itself, and getting those expressions into the minds of others. The origin of the alphabet is a model for understanding the revolutions created by all future communication technologies: the printing press, radio, telephone, television, the Internet, in short, the future of media. I also consider
- the feedback loop between mind and media
- the conquest of the electromagnetic spectrum
- science and religion
- quasi-heretical or at least under-informed readings of Jewish texts, and Jewish histories and mysteries that flow from the highly alphabetized culture of the Jews, the first fully alphabetized culture, and
- occasional political rants without apologies but against my better judgment.
I’m the author of The Soft Machine: Cybernetic Fiction (Methuen/Routledge), Rope Dances (short stories, The Fiction Collective); A Short Guide to Writing About Science, (HarperCollins & Pearson) and other books, as well as reviews, essays, blogs, fiction, plays, and articles. For 21 years, I was a professor of literature and media at William & Mary and then at Rensselaer. I am also the former CEO, co-founder and executive of several e-learning companies and programs at universities, non-profits and in the private sector.
You can write to me here.
