If we could derive cognition even from the many experiences of human self- constitution in computer games, we could not only further the success of the industry that changed the way humans play, but gain some insight into motivations, cognitive and emotional aspects of this elementary form of human identity. Above and beyond the speculation on playful man (Homo Ludens), there are quantifiable aspects of competition, satisfaction, and pleasure. And as the Internet effectively maps our journey through a maze of data, information, and sources of knowledge, we can ask whether such cognitive maps are not too valuable to be abandoned to marketing experts, instead being utilized for understanding what makes us tick as we search for a word, an image, an experience. Data regarding how and what we buy is not always representative of what we are. For many people, buying a book or a work of art, a fashionable shirt, a home, or a car is only an experience in mediation performed by the agents of these objects. But there are authentic experiences in which no one can replace us human beings. Games belong to this domain, and so do joking and interactions with friends. No agent can replace us. Within such authentic moments of self-constitution, cognitive resources of exceptional value are at work.

Many people from very different locations and of different backgrounds might simultaneously be present on a certain Web site, without ever knowing it. The server's performance could suggest that there is quite a crowd at a Web site, but it cannot say who the others are, what they are looking for, what kind of cognition drives the digital engine of their particular experiences.

While the medium of networking is more transparent than literacy experiences, it still maintains a certain opaqueness, enhanced by the firewalls meant to protect us from ourselves. Many individuals present at the same time on a Web site is not a situation one can duplicate in literacy, in which the ratio was one reader to one book, or one magazine, or even one videotape (although more than one can watch it on the family TV set, in a class, or on an airplane). Thousands of viewers simultaneously landing on a Web site is a chance and a challenge. We should accordingly think of methods for identifying ourselves, to the extent desired, and declare willingness to interact. This next level of self-constitution and identification is where the potential of rich interactions and further generation of cognition becomes possible. Tapping into cognitive resources in such situations is an opportunity we should not postpone.

Burning cognition, digital engines allow us to reach efficiency that is higher by many orders of magnitude in comparison to the efficiency attained by engines burning coal and oil. But the experience introduces the pressure of accelerated accumulation of data, information processing, and knowledge utilization. To understand the intimate relation between the performance of the digital engine and our own performance, one has only to think of a coal-burning steam engine driving a locomotive uphill. The civilization of illiteracy is a rather steep ascent, facing many obstacles-our physical abilities, limited natural resources, ecological concerns, ability to handle social complexity. To pull the brake will only make the effort of the engine more difficult, unless we want to tumble downhill, head first. Feeding the furnace faster is the answer that every sensible engineer knows. This would sound like a curse, were it not for the excitement of discovery, including that of our own cognitive resources.

Analogy aside, what drives the digital engine is not abstract computing cycles of faster chips, but human cognition embodied in experiences that support further diversification of experiences. It has yet to be the case that we had enough computing cycles to burn and we did not know what to do with the extra computing power available. On the contrary, human practical experiences are always ahead of technology, as we challenge ourselves with new tasks for which the chips of yesterday and the memory available are as inappropriate as the methods and means of literacy.

Bio-electric signals associated with the activity of our minds have been measured for quite a number of years. We learned from such measurements that minds are constituted in anticipation of our practical experience of self-identification as human beings. The idea seemed far-fetched, despite the strong scientific evidence on which it was ultimately founded. Cognition is process, and bio-electric signals are indicative of cognitive processes in our minds. Sensors attached to the skin, such as through a simple finger glove, can read such signals. In effect, they read unfolding mind processes based on our cognitive resources. Feeding digital engines hungry to burn cognition, we arrive not only at mind-controlled prosthetic devices for people with disabilities, but also at a mind-driven painter's brush, or desktop film directing, allowing us to get involved with cinematographic projects of scripting and affecting variations of the plot. From pinball games to tennis and skiing, from virtual bowling to virtual football, our thoughts make new experiences possible. For those affected by disabilities, this is a qualitatively new horizon. Einstein, but many others as well, was quite convinced that only 10 percent of our cognitive abilities are effectively engaged in what we do. As the digital engine burns more and more cognition, this number will change, as probably our physical condition, already marked by forms of degeneration, will change too.

If, by using only one-tenth of our cognitive resources, we reach the level of possibilities open to us, it is not too hard to imagine what only one more tenth might bring. The civilization of illiteracy, with all the dangers and inequities it has to address, is only at its beginning. That its duration will be shorter than the one preceding it is another subject.

1982-1996: Providence RI; Rochester NY; Bexley OH; New York NY; Little Compton RI; Wuppertal, Germany.

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Literacy in a Changing World