Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Charles Lowry <lowry.charles AT gmail.com>]

The only reason some of us are still alive (or still in a relationship or still employed or or still able to shop at a particular bakery or pharmacy or hardware store) is that there is a difference between homo loquens and homo cogitans.  The best interrogators and the best negotiators have been able to thrive by blurring the line between homo loquens and homo cogitans.  How soon before Musk’s development goes from “Let me tell you telepathically what I want you to know” to “No need to say a thing; I have access to your thoughts”?  St. Thomas Aquinas relentlessly insisted that in this life all elements of the person were inseparable.  When that changes, when significant chunks of human interaction can be carried out without a physical component, what else changes?  At my age it is no sure thing that I’ll be here to see any changes in five years, let alone ten, but I think I’ll just keep talking as long as I can.

Or did they, long before Elon Musk and St. Thomas, have this same conversation when writing was invented?

Chuck Lowry

Brooklyn, New York

Sent from my iPhone

On May 10, 2020, at 10:56 AM, honeyjbc1 . <honeyjbc AT gmail.com> wrote:



It seems we might not lose much if he would need longer talk to others.

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 10:21 AM Marcus Smith <marcus AT loyno.edu> wrote:

Elon Musk says speech and human language in final years.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-joe-rogan-podcast-language-neuralink-grimes-baby-a9506451.html

Musk seems as big a narcissist as Trump, but Percy would have read the article and had something to say.  Can’t begin to guess what he would have said.  

Why do I recall Umberto Eco’s definition of the “sign”?  Anything that can be used to tell a lie.  

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