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Scholarly Skywriting at the Speed of Thought

Scholarly Skywriting at the Speed of Thought. Stevan Harnad, UQAM, U Southampton Language co-evolved with human cognition 300,000 years ago and made distributed, interactive thought possible.

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Scholarly Skywriting at the Speed of Thought

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  1. Scholarly Skywriting at the Speed of Thought Stevan Harnad, UQAM, U Southampton Language co-evolved with human cognition 300,000 years ago and made distributed, interactive thought possible. The invention of writing preserved thought, making science and scholarship possible, but at the cost of slowing its turnaround time far below its neurological potential. Web quote/commentary has at last made it possible to fast-forward scholarly skywriting to the speed of thought.

  2. 2. Speed of Thought This is not the one I’m talking about: This is:

  3. 3. Thinking Out LoudThe evolution of language made it possible for us to think aloud, share our thoughts, pass them on by word-of-mouth: Hearsay was the beginning of distributed cognition.

  4. 4. Mushroom GatheringMost of cognition is adaptive category acquisition: Learning what kind of thing to do with what kind of thing.

  5. 5. Cognitive CommonsThe result of this collective category acquisition has been our shared, cumulative knowledge: our species’ “Cognitive Commons”

  6. 6. Four Cognitive Revolutions: Speaking (fast turnaround time)Handwriting (slow turnaround time)Print (slow turnaround time)Skywriting (fast turnaround time)

  7. 7. Category acquisitionThere are four ways to acquire categories1. Inborn2. Doing (trial/error experience + error-corrective feedback)3. Showing4. TellingOur species is the only one capable of Telling.

  8. 8. Showing vs. TellingPantomime vs. the full power of propositions

  9. 9. Seeing vs. Saying

  10. 10. Revolution #1: 300,000 Years ago: The Advent of Language

  11. 11. Parallel vs. Serial ProcessingSeeing is parallelSaying/Hearing is serial, with real-time contsraints

  12. 12. Gesture vs. SpeechLanguage probably began with gesture and pantomime (showing)Gestures only became language once they became arbitrary, and propositions replaced pantomime.Then language migrated to the medium of speech because of the functional advantages or speech (including timing)

  13. 13. Dialogue and InstructionLanguage can describe, define and explain,but it does this at a biological, interactive tempo set by speech and hearing

  14. 14. Production, Perception, and Discourse TimingThe speed of thought co-evolved with the interactive speed of speech

  15. 15. Speed of Cognition (Thought)The brain is biologically adapted for the real-time speed of oral dialogue: intercognition

  16. 16. Distributed Cognition“Offloading Cognition” onto other brains, media and devices

  17. 17. The Oral TraditionSpeech can be one-on-one or one-on-manybut it carries and lasts only as far and long as word –of-mouth does

  18. 17. Verba Volunt, Scripta ManentWords Vanish, Writings Perdure

  19. 19. Revolution #2:6000 years ago The Advent of Handwriting

  20. 20. Birth of ScienceScience began with language, but…

  21. 21. Letters, Journals, Turnaround Time and the Speed of Thought…science and scholarshiponly came into their ownwith the invention of writing,winning permanence, but…

  22. 22. Speech vs. Handwriting…at the cost of a radical slow-down in turnaround time well below the speed for which thinking was biologically adapted

  23. 23. 600 years ago: PrintPrint enhanced preservation and scope, but still kept interactions far below the biological turn-around time of real-time speech: Spoken interactions are online cognition; written interactions are offline cognition.

  24. 24. Handwriting vs. PrintTurnaround time was still hopelessly out of synch with the real-time biological speed of thought, but then…

  25. 25. 40 years ago: the Internet

  26. 26. 20 years ago: the Web

  27. 27. Email and Electronic Discussion ListsWritten discourse was accelerated to the speed of thought

  28. 28. Public Quote/Commentary: Skywriting • Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text • > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text

  29. Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text 29. Scholarly Skywriting

  30. 30. BBS "Open Peer Commentary”A peer commentary journal (1978) that began 40 years before its time It was always waiting for the medium that makes “scholarly skywriting at the speed of thought” possible

  31. 31. Open Access: The Real MotivationThe real motivation for Open Access is not just to get peer-reviewed research articles online and freely accessible…

  32. Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text 32. Scholarly Skywriting at the Speed of Thought… but to make real-time public quote/commentary on the Open Access research corpus possible, by restoring cognitive interaction to the speed of thought

  33. 33. Collaboration and Interactive Cognition

  34. 34. “Live” Dialogue with Dead TextSkywriting is public, global, interactive(and even possible with dead authors!) Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text > Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text

  35. 35. Our Cognitive Commons

  36. Brody, T., Carr, L., Gingras, Y., Hajjem, C., Harnad, S. and Swan, A. (2007) Incentivizing the Open Access Research Web: Publication-Archiving, Data-Archiving and Scientometrics. CTWatch Quarterly 3(3).Dror, I. and Harnad, S. (2009) Offloading Cognition onto Cognitive Technology. In Dror & Harnad (Eds) (2009): Cognition Distributed: How Cognitive Technology Extends Our Minds. BenjaminsHarnad, S. (1995) Interactive Cognition: Exploring the Potential of Electronic Quote/Commenting. In: B. Gorayska & J.L. Mey (Eds.) Cognitive Technology: In Search of a Humane Interface. Elsevier. Pp. 397-414. _____(2003) Back to the Oral Tradition Through Skywriting at the Speed of Thought. Interdisciplines. _____(2005) To Cognize is to Categorize: Cognition is Categorization, in Lefebvre, C. and Cohen, H., Eds. Handbook of Categorization. Elsevier. Poynder, R. (2007) From Glottogenesis to the Category Commons. Open And Shut.Shadbolt, N., Brody, T., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2006) The Open Research Web: A Preview of the Optimal and the Inevitable, in Jacobs, N., Eds. Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects. Chandos.

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