Metaphysics and Technology

Terry Alden

Alden's Principle of Spiritual/Technological Mirroring: Natural Spiritual Abilities versus Externalized Technological Powers
Distinction between Magic and Technology: Arthur C. Clark's Law and Robert A. Wilson's Corollary
Marshall McLuhan on the Two Great Technological Revolutions: Phonetic and Electric
Left- and Right-Brain Dominance Shifts in Mankind
Duplicating the Human Biocomputer in 1993 PC Technology; Update to 2007 PC Technology (Proposed)
McLuhan's Laws of Technology


Robert Anton Wilson	Dr. H. Marshall McLuhan Professor of English University of Toronto	Arthur C. Clarke

"He was called the genius or the guru of media. The way it came about was that he was inspired by a predecessor of his at the University of Toronto named Harold Innis. Innis studied the effects of literacy, English language literacy, upon highly literate people and how their behavior was changed, how their ways of thinking were changed or affected by being literate, by reading a lot. No one, according to McLuhan, had ever studied the effects of any kind of technology on anything or anybody. Even though it's as pervasive as it is, as important in our lives as it is, nobody had ever studied the effects of technology. They put it out there, we all use it and we all love it, but nobody asked the questions, "What is it doing to us?" or "How is it changing our ways of thinking?" or "How is it changing our society?""

"On the other hand, there are lots of ways that computers are way ahead of us human biocomputers -- in speed of communications, for example. As fast as I'm talking here to you, if I could say three words every second of these average five-letter words, I would be speaking at approximately the rate of 75 bits per second or 75 Baud, which is the computer communications term. I'm actually quite a lot slower than that. A modem is a device which allows communications between computers and today you can get one for about $450.00 which will transmit and receive 14,400 bits per second, a communication rate about 200 times faster than I'm speaking to you right now. So this entire lecture, which is aimed to take about an hour and a half, could be delivered to you in just 27 seconds at 14,400 Baud. I think many of you might prefer it that way! Computers definitely have the gift of the gab and we're already far behind them in that respect."

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