Indeed, although very powerful in many respects,
when faced with many pragmatic levels independent of language,
literacy (through which language attains its optimal
operational power) appears flat. Actually, not only literacy
appears flat, but even the much glorified human intelligence.
Distinctions that result from deeper segmentation of work,
brought about by the requirements of a scale of population and
demand of an order of magnitude exponentially higher than any
experience an individual can have, can no longer be grasped by
single minds. Since the condition of the mind depends on
interaction with other minds within practical experiences of
self-constitution, it results that means of interaction
different from those appropriate to sequentiality, linearity, and
dualism are necessary. This new stage is not a continuation of a
previous stage. It is even less a result of an incremental
progression. The wheel, once upon a time a rounded stone, along
with a host of wheel-based means of practical experiences,
opened a perspective of progression. So did the lever, and
probably alphabetic writing, and the number system. This is why
the old and new could be linked through comparisons, metaphors,
and analogies in a given scale of humankind. But this is also
why, when the scale changes, we have to deal with discontinuity
and avoid misleading translations in the language of the past.
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