Originally published at framework – Gardner Writes (see it there)
Week 1 emphasis for reading and annotating.
It’s a lot to take in. Doug Engelbart’s monumental 1962 research report Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework–really a monograph, and indeed a manifesto–is dense with yearning, with ideas, with analysis, and with a kind of moral philosophy devoted to human flourishing in the midst of–because of, in spite of–human invention and ingenuity.
The Engelbart Framework Annotation Project, in this first iteration, emphasizes just three key sections from Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. Week 1 is devoted entirely to the Introduction, parts A and B. I’ve recorded a podcast of this section as an aid to study for those who, like me and apparently quite a few others, enjoy listening to books as well as reading them, and for whom listening means encountering the work while driving, doing the laundry, or a thousand other tasks in which reading would be impossible or at least unadvisable.
I’ll be doing podcasts for all the sections we’re emphasizing in this event. Week 2 comprises two excerpts describing Engelbart’s conceptual framework as well as his transclusion and analysis of key passages from Vannevar Bush’s As We May Think. Week 3 is the longest excerpt, the “Joe” story from Section III, where Engelbart himself believed the “fiction-dialogue” form might help his readers begin to imagine the unimaginable, and in doing so begin to shift toward the paradigms Engelbart believed we should consider and build toward, lest we founder on the shoals of our own blasted ingenuity.
So here’s the reading for Week 1. I hope my oral interpretation is helpful. And I hope you will join us for the annotation event, for as much or as little time as you can devote to it. This is only a beginning. Come let us build together!