Deep Literacy Book

 

 

Deep literacy results in an intimacy with your work and your tools which gives you the freedom to see farther and act faster – true 21st century super-powers. Whereas in the 20th century Superman is the fantasy-man in the tight onesie, in this century the superhero is Clark Kent (nerdy specs optional).

 

Where deep literacy comes from is a hunger to learn in order to better be who you really are in the world, whether this is as an athlete, computer gamer, solider, doctor or knowledge worker, driven by the motivation that there is always a better way to work, a faster way and a way which gives you more control.

 

Since you are reading this introduction it could be assumed that you are standing in a bookshop feeling that this is what you already do and wonder how anyone could write such a condescending book, or perhaps someone (perhaps someone older than you?) have given you this book in the hope that you study and work harder. Wherever you come from however, this book only aims to be your companion as you continue your dive into how powerful you can become.

 

We will meet Doug Engelbart, to whom this book is dedicated, who significantly contributed to the creation of the personal computing with the deep goal of ‘augmenting human intellect’, resulting in a grand demo in 1968. We will also meet many current deeply literate leaders of their fields and learn from them how they go where they are, how they work and what they wish they knew when they started, including the co-inventor of the Internet; Vint Cerf.

 

To provide you with a useful language to discuss the stuff of your work; ‘information’, we will look at what information is and what the attributes of information are which you should care about and work with, in terms of the philosophical foundations of our universe and how you can more powerfully interact with your AI in the future, whether at your desk or in VR cyberspace.

 

We will also venture into different fields of thought and communication, including introductions to specific software systems to give you the freedom to explore further.

 

The stuff and technology does not mean much if you don’t understand your own mind and how learning and thinking occurs so we will survey the fields of cognitive science for a deeper perspective of your own mind.

 

In closing we will look at the development of the Author word processor, which was developed by the author of this book to put his money where his mouth is where comes to building tools to augment your ability to write the next chapter in this saga.