Quora: What is the most amazing thing that computers have made possible?
Alan Kay: Still trying to learn to think better.
I think that the answer will be very similar to the answer to the question "what is the most amazing thing that writing (and later the printing press) made possible."
It's not that writing and printing made possible a completely different kind of travel through time and space, which is a wonderful and important aspect, but that there is a new way to travel through ideas as a consequence of what it means to learn to read and write fluently. Many studies have shown that a literate culture is qualitatively different from traditional oral cultures, and that there is a correlation between literacy and civilizations that is not a coincidence.
Further qualitative changes came with the advent of printing, and both of these changes are a little puzzling, since each of them was originally a kind of automation of what was before: recording speech and printing what was written. In both cases, the difference was "what else?". "And what else?" has to do with "what's different" that happens when a person is fluent in any instrument, especially one that carries both ideas and actions.
There's a lot more to add here that will exceed the size of a standard Quora answer, but first, let's look at what writing and printing means for description and argumentation. New ways of writing and reading are now available in form, length, structure, and content type. And it all evolves along with new kinds of ideas.
In light of this, the question can be put as follows: what is so qualitatively new and important that computers bring. Think about what it means not only to describe an idea, but to be able to model it, implement it, explore its consequences and hidden assumptions in a way that has never been done before. Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, who organized the first ARPA study that led to today's personal computer and ubiquitous networking technologies, wrote in 1960 (slightly paraphrasing): "In a few years, the relationship between humans and computers will begin to think like this in a way no one could have imagined before."
This vision was first juxtaposed with additional tools and vehicles, but was soon embraced as a much larger idea of ββchanging the types of communications and ways of thinking that would be as revolutionary as those brought about by writing and printing.
To understand what happened, we only need to look at the history of writing and printing to note two very different consequences: (a) the first, huge change in the last 450 years in how the physical and social worlds are viewed through the inventions of modern science and government, and (b) that the majority of people who read in principle still primarily prefer fiction, self-development and religion books, cookbooks, etc. (based on the most read books of the past 10 years in America). All topics that would be familiar to any caveman.
One way of looking at it is that when a powerful new way of expressing ourselves arises that was missing in our genes to become part of traditional cultures, we need to learn how to become fluent in and use it. Without special training, new media will be mainly used to automate old forms of thinking. And here, too, there are consequences, especially if the new media are more effective than the old ones, which can lead to a glut that acts like legal drugs (as in the case of the Industrial Revolution's ability to produce sugar and fat, the environment can there will be a surplus of stories, news, statuses and new ways of verbal interaction.
On the other hand, almost all science and engineering is possible only thanks to computers, and mainly because of the ability of computers to actively model ideas (including the βidea of ββthinkingβ itself), given the huge contribution that printing has already made.
Einstein remarked that "we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." We can use computers to solve many of our biggest problems in new ways.
On the other hand, we will be in terrible trouble if we use computers to create new levels of problems that our level of thinking is not designed for and should be avoided and eliminated. A good analogy can be found in the phrases "nuclear weapons are dangerous in any human hands", but "nuclear weapons in the hands of cavemen are much more dangerous."
Great quote by Wee Hart: "We must ensure that human wisdom surpasses human strength."
And we do not acquire wisdom without much effort, especially with children who are just beginning to form their ideas about the world in which they were born.
Translation: Yana Shchekotova
More articles by Alan Kay
Source: habr.com