Could you imagine if we could leapfrog language and communicate directly with human thought? What would we be capable of then? And how will we learn to deal with the truths of unfiltered human thought? You think the Internet was big. These are huge questions.
The act of learning to read added an entirely new circuit to our hominid brain's repertoire. The long developmental process of learning to read deeply changed the very structure of that circuit's connections, which rewired the brain, which transformed the nature of human thought.
In much of computer science, I can easily 'auto-grade' your work and give you an instant meaningful feedback. I can't do this when it comes to the subtlety of human thought, language, poetry, philosophy.
I think it's the tendency to want to create gods and monotheistic absolutes and absolute certainties that is the continual temptation in human thought - that's the great danger. Every time we create a god, we diminish humanity.
Jay: What branch of the government do we report to?
Kay: None, they ask too many questions.
Jay: So who pays for all this?
Kay: We hold patents on a few gadgets we confiscated from the visitors. Velcro, microwave ovens, liposuction. This is a fascinating little gadget. It'll replace CDs soon. Guess I'll have
to buy the 'White Album' again.
Jay: That's fun.
Kay: It's a universal translator. We're not even supposed to have it. I'll tell you why. Human thought is so primitive it's looked upon as an infectious disease in some of the better galaxies. That kind of makes you proud, doesn't it?