John Miedema

Reading Mysticism, Pt. 3

The I, Reader series has wrestled with opposites. Robot vs person, print vs digital, self vs other, quantity vs quality, on vs off. Opposites are a hallmark of Western rational thought (as Mark commented). Other approaches may be helpful.

One, it can be valuable to simply reflect on opposites, koan-like, without making any effort to resolve them.

Two, we can reject the opposites, and look for synthesis.

In discussions of reading, one common dichotomy is that of print versus digital technology. The common view is that digital technology will replace print. For example, e-book readers will replace print books. I find this view strange, not because I have any sentimental attachment to print, but rather that it contradicts my observation that print books are often better for reading anything of length or substance. We can move toward synthesis by recognizing that print and books are both technologies. Print and digital are just different formats, serving different purposes. The contradiction between the two formats exists only on the surface.

I will go one step further. In the common view, print is regarded as an analog technology, and computers a digital technology. What exactly does it mean to be digital? It has something to do with digits, of course. Well, my fingers are digits, and they are involved with reading the pages of print books. Digital also refers to the use of discrete values rather than a continuous range, e.g., a digital clock displays numbers only whereas an analog clock uses arms that move in circles. Well, both the clock and the print book display discrete values. A clock shows discrete numbers, and a print book shows discrete letters. (The continuous representations are surplus value, begging the question of which medium provides more information.) A more precise definition of the term, digital, might refer to the binary basics of computers, with bits being on or off. Well, if one looks closely at print letters, one sees that they are dots. A letter is built from a collection of binary on and off ink dots. It seems difficult to sustain the usual dichotomy between analog and digital books.

Three, we can allow for oscillation, one polar view or state eventually becoming the other, ultimately returning to the first, yin-yang fashion. I think of this process as a two-step dance. In the long run, it seems more productive.