Information Ages

The late 20th century is referred to as the Information Age and the claim appears to require no justification. But in this text, the authors challenge this widespread assumption. In a history of information technology from the ancient Sumerians to the world of Alan Turing and John von Neumann, the authors show how revolutions in the technology of information storage - from the invention of writing approximately 5000 years ago to the mathematical models for describing physical reality in the 17th and 18th centuries to the introduction of computers - profoundly transformed ways of thinking. They posit the theory that during the first information age, the classical age of literacy, systems for keeping written records did not simply enhance earlier oral models of communication but actually created the concept of information itself. The development first of cuneiform and later of alphabetic writing freed the mind from the mnemonic burdens of oral culture and encouraged new forms of intellectual activity. The invention of the alphabet in particular spurred the ancient Greeks to speculate on language and its relation to experience, thus prompting the rise of natural philosophy. Combining what is now known as science and philosophy, this new form of knowing classified information about the world in a hierarchical system that mirrored the observable order of nature and for two millennia provided the intellectual standard of the Western world. Throught the book, the authors emphasize that information is a historical creation of the human mind rather than a fixed aspect of reality. Providing an enquiry into how humanity has stored and processed information from prehistoric to contemporary times, the text offers a perspective on ourselves and our past, as well as a look into the future.