Augmentation of Life

Just in case you are wondering I’m still in Italy in the Maremma. Lots of woods, meadows, and sandy beaches, excellent Morellino di Scansano, Pecorino and everything else that augments the taste of life and time. If time (especially my daughter) permits I sift thru Doug Engelbarts, Augmenting Human Intellect, written in 1962.
It’s always great to look back to a then utopian (or at least hopeful) view on our working and living environment. Engelbart thought that computers are the best tools to achieve this augmentation though language, and methods need to cope with the tools (or artifacts). Interesting is his Neo-Whorfian (B.L. Whorf “language is part of forms reality”) theory that the external manipulation of symbols (via computers or typewriters and the like) fundamentally influences our world or more precisely what we can understand (thru language) of something that we call our world.”br”