Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/08833_Field_TCGG T598.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 1KB | 16 lines

mathematicians in the past. It has been assumed till now that
so long as everybody is hypnotized by the same isolated sense
or spell, that the resulting homogeneity of mental states will
suffice for human association. That print increasingly
hypnotized the Western world is nowadays the theme of all
historians of art and science alike, because we no longer live
under the spell of the isolated visual sense. We have not yet
begun to ask under what new spell we exist. In place of spell it
may be more acceptable to say “assumptions” or “parameters”
or “frame of reference.” No matter what the metaphor, is it not
absurd for men to live involuntarily altered in their inmost lives
by some mere technological extension of our inner senses? The
shift in our sense ratios brought about by exteriorizations of
our senses is not a situation before which we need be helpless.
Computers can now be programmed for every possible variety
of sense ratio. We can then read off exactly what would be the