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Post Literacy Post Literacy is a concept that entails a futuristic society where, literacy as far as, reading and writing, will not be necessary or exist, and will be replaced by more powerful tools, capabilities or capacities. Its premise is based on the fact that throughout literacy’s history oral societies were replaced by literate ones, and therefore, literate societies will inevitably be replaced by some sort of post literate one. Post-Literacy does not imply a digression in literacy, but rather an advancement to a more powerful technology. The reason for replacing a previous society comes from the desire to overcome limitations of that society. From oral societies, we transitioned to literate ones to overcome the limit of our memory by writing information down, and post-literacy will overcome the limitations of language. One of the most knowledgeable people on the topic of post-literacy, is Mike Ridley. Mr. Ridley is the chief information officer, chief librarian and a beloved professor at the University of Guelph, in Ontario Canada. He has been exploring and gathering evidence to support his belief in the eventual transition humans will make to post literacy. Some theories of how Post-literacy may manifest itself include, bio-computing or neural prosthetics, a hive mind or collective unconscious, drugs or cosmetic neurology, tech-lepathy, telepathy, genetic memory, or as post humans.

Post Humans

The idea behind post humans is speculative; it is the thought that humanity will use technology as a means of increasing their capacity for knowledge, work, health, and other aspects of life. This may come from our desire for the advancement of our race, or out of necessity if humans are no longer able to live on Earth without the assistance of technology. A current example of our movement towards post human technology is the inventions of Prof. Steve Mann. Mann created a line of wearable computers, which include computer screen glasses, heat and respiration sensors in a shirt, miniature keyboard in a pocket, radio transmitter in underwear, and a pace monitor in shoes. He wears his inventions constantly and says it improves his quality of life. Some examples of functions of his wearable computers include wireless email, phone, video recording and music player. He also has the ability to take pictures, store them on his website, and view them later, which was particularly helpful when he witnessed a car accident and was the only person able to take pictures of the scene. This technology has amazing potential for the future betterment of humanity, and is a great example of how technological tools may one day enhance the human capacity to transmit information and interact with the world.

Neural Prosethetics and Post-literacy

Neural prosthesis as it is viewed today, is concerned with improving, and even curing people with neural damage and neural disease (like Alzheimer’s), and also facilitating mobilization in people with physical disabilities. Yet viewed by post-literacy theorists, neural prosthetics may also hold the key to enabling a post-literate society. Since the notion of post literacy involves a higher level of thinking than we currently have, it is speculated that neural prosthetics are what is needed in order to make this a reality. It is believed that if we want to improve our cognitive capacity and cognitive efficiency, we would require some additive device. This is supported by the fact that we currently use most, if not all, of our brain capacity. Therefore we should look outside of ourselves if we want to attain a higher level of brain functioning. Neural prosthetics are speculated to be capable of this, and holders of this belief look towards existing neural prosthetics and current neural prosthetic research to support their belief.

Current Research in Neural Prosthesis

Dr. Theodore W. Berger is a researcher from the Biomedical Engineering Lab at the University of Southern California who is currently researching the possibility of creating a micro chip that could be inserted into the mammalian nervous system, in effect repairing damaged brain tissue. His research focuses on the hippocampus region of the brain which is required for learning and memory. Berger’s research aims to understand how the hippocampal neurons function within the nervous system. Berger anticipates that sufficient research in this area will lend the necessary information to begin tailoring the micro chip to humans’ specific needs. As it is planned, the micro chip will become an integral part of the nervous system. It will be able to receive and send out electrical signals to the rest of the brain. A preliminary version of this micro chip has already been created and tested in rats. It is estimated that the micro chip will start being inserted in humans in the coming five years.

For post-literacy theorists, Dr. Berger’s work lends critical evidence for the possibility of a new way of thinking and communicating. Although his work is only aimed at repairing damaged brain tissue (ie. getting the brain back to its normal state), his progress could eventually be extended to "enhancing" the brain beyond current capacities. Given that his micro chip can send out and recieve electrical signals to and from the brain, the possibility for "techlepathy" or "technologically-enabled-telepathy" seems realistic. It seems realistic because if we know that electrical signals in the brain can be sent out into the external environment via a computer chip, then it would seem likely that this could be taken one step further whereby signals travel from one person's brain to another – in effect, enabling techlepathy.

In another area of neural prosthesis, engineers at Stanford University are focussing their research on motor prosthetics. Though their developments so far are rudimentary, they have proven that it is possible for micro chips to interpret neural activity in the brain, and then convert those signals into the movement of objects that the individual intends to move himself, but no longer needs to because a computer can do it for him. In the experiment, they tested the micro chip in a rhesus monkey. The monkey was trained to point to one side of a computer screen based on where they saw a dot. A mouse on the computer, being fed information from the monkey's brain also moved in the direction of the dot. Soon enough, the monkey learned that it did not have to extend its arm. The mouse could move on its own, based on information interpreted from the monkey’s brain.

The Effect of Post-literacy on Society

The implications for a future post-literate society will be both beneficial and detrimental. It is thought that being post-literate will allow us to make great advancements in knowledge and technology. Our communication will be faster, humans will learn more in less time, and will have a greater capacity for work. New jobs will be created in designing, manufacturing and using this new technology, which will positively benefit the economy. However, because this technology will be expensive to develop and own, it will further the segregation between the rich and poor. Becoming literate is relatively cheap, yet 18% of the world is presently illiterate. If post-literacy gives the rich the power to leave the poor behind through higher thinking and better communication, this portion of people who are illiterate will continue to grow. Also, this technology will likely be developed by western society, and will therefore be in English. Since only 20% of the world speaks English, this will leave 80% without access to this powerful tool for development and advancement. Looking at countries such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Australia, it appears that English speaking countries are generally more developed already, meaning that post-literacy will cause English speaking countries to rapidly advance past non-English, developing countries, leaving them in the dust. Developing countries will be left with a choice of assimilating the English language as a means of accessing post-literacy, or staying underdeveloped. Overall the effects of post-literacy seem to be more negative then positive, unless a worldwide agreement were to be developed to make post-literacy inexpensive and accessible to all.

The Effect of Post-literacy as an Art Form

Literature is already being lost in the advancement of modern English, eventually literature as an entertainment source, or form of art will be forgotten. Post-literacy will be significantly more entertaining and efficient, it will offer the mind more pleasure than our current state of literature.

Some people believe that there will no longer be emotion behind thought processes. With literacy we can elaborate with synonyms. In Post-literacy everyone will know information in it's most efficient, most generalized form, the details and emotions will be lost.