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Magic Waves, Extrasensory Powers, and Nonstop Instantaneity: Imagining the Digital beyond Digits

Magic Waves, Extrasensory Powers, and Nonstop Instantaneity: Imagining the Digital beyond Digits Cover of the Chinese translation of Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave (1981). 42 doi:10.1162/GREY_a_00194 Magic Waves, Extrasensory Powers, and Nonstop Instantaneity: Imagining the Digital beyond Digits XIAO LIU In “A Lost Dream” (Diushi de meng), a Chinese science fiction story published in 1983, a country girl unable to go to college encounters Dr. Di Fang, a cognitive scientist. Dr. Di promises to turn her instantly into a highly knowledgeable woman by means of a mysterious medium whose efficiency of information transmission surpasses such traditional means as spoken and written language. The girl agrees and goes to sleep. “Around her head, a dozen electronic eyes are watching her closely, collecting every single small fluctuation of her brainwaves.” As information transmission begins, the effects of Dr. Di’s mysterious medium are displayed as waveform graphs on a twenty-four-inch monitor: “Several waves are swirling in torrents, accompanied by flashing flames and sparkling spots, as if they were fireworks at festivals, or flying bullets in the battlefield. . . . Gradually, the confusing, overlapping waves are replaced by continuous, beautiful sine waves of symmetry and harmony.”1 Thrilled with this display, Dr. Di celebrates the success of immediate and massive information transmission: I know http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Grey Room MIT Press

Magic Waves, Extrasensory Powers, and Nonstop Instantaneity: Imagining the Digital beyond Digits

Grey Room , Volume Spring 2016 (63) – May 1, 2016

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References (38)

Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
© 2016 by Grey Room, Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
ISSN
1526-3819
eISSN
1536-0105
DOI
10.1162/GREY_a_00194
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Cover of the Chinese translation of Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave (1981). 42 doi:10.1162/GREY_a_00194 Magic Waves, Extrasensory Powers, and Nonstop Instantaneity: Imagining the Digital beyond Digits XIAO LIU In “A Lost Dream” (Diushi de meng), a Chinese science fiction story published in 1983, a country girl unable to go to college encounters Dr. Di Fang, a cognitive scientist. Dr. Di promises to turn her instantly into a highly knowledgeable woman by means of a mysterious medium whose efficiency of information transmission surpasses such traditional means as spoken and written language. The girl agrees and goes to sleep. “Around her head, a dozen electronic eyes are watching her closely, collecting every single small fluctuation of her brainwaves.” As information transmission begins, the effects of Dr. Di’s mysterious medium are displayed as waveform graphs on a twenty-four-inch monitor: “Several waves are swirling in torrents, accompanied by flashing flames and sparkling spots, as if they were fireworks at festivals, or flying bullets in the battlefield. . . . Gradually, the confusing, overlapping waves are replaced by continuous, beautiful sine waves of symmetry and harmony.”1 Thrilled with this display, Dr. Di celebrates the success of immediate and massive information transmission: I know

Journal

Grey RoomMIT Press

Published: May 1, 2016

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