Digital Intelligence: A New Way of Knowing - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 63

object oriented and often clustered. Because of the
new functions provided through digital technolo-
gies, information/knowledge may be personally
arranged and rearranged. It could be said that those
with the ability to understand and interact with
this digital information to arrange, manipulate and
display it according to their perceptions posses
yet another intelligence--an intelligence made
up of components of the other intelligences, just
as musical or spatial intelligence is described by
Gardner to exist. As Gardner describes in his latest
work, there exist 'individual virtuosos' with the
characteristics of 'symbol analyst' and 'master
of change' (1999). Those possessing this talent
could be termed digitally intelligent.
Continuing with Gardner's criteria of univer-
sality and a unique symbol encoding system to
define the existence of a discrete intelligence, there
is little question of the universality of digital media
across cultures. The development of computer
icons used for communication within a digital
environment satisfies the criterion of encoding
in a symbol system. When using Gardner's own
criterion for intelligence classification, digital
intelligence logically exists.
A change in world culture caused by digital
technology is occurring. Changes in communica-
tion style, life style, economic practice and in the
way we think have been caused by digital tech-
nology. Our “ability to solve problems or fashion
products that are of consequence in a particular
cultural setting or community” (1993, p. 15). is
directly related to our ability to interact with this
emerging digital environment.
Sherry Turkle, in her books The Second Self:
Computers and the Human Spirit (1984, 2005)
and Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the
Internet (1997), writes “...the computer offers us
both new model of mind and a new medium on
which to project our ideas and fantasies...a nascent
culture of simulation is affecting our ideas about
mind, body, self and machine” (1997, p. 9-10).
“The lessons of computing today have little to do
with calculation and rules; instead they concern

simulation, navigation, and interaction...The
computer culture's center of gravity has shifted
decisively to people who do not think of them-
selves as programmers” (1997, p. 19). “We are
moving from a modernist culture of calculation
toward a postmodernist culture of simulation...
Mainstream computer researchers no longer aspire
to program intelligence into computers but expect
intelligence to emerge from the interactions of
small subprograms. If these emergent simulations
are 'opaque', this is not necessarily a problem...
our brains are opaque to us, but this has never
prevented them from functioning perfectly well
as minds” (1997, p. 19-20).
Jane Healy (1990, 1999) contends changing
lifestyles may be altering children's brains in subtle
but critical ways and speaks of the development of
a new intellectual style. When discussing digital
technology, she writes “subtle shifts in what the
human brain is required to do will eventually cause
it to modify itself for new uses... ” (1999, p. 332).
Her concern with this topic caused her to inquire of
Dr. Jerome Bruner his opinion of changing brains
in a technological age. His reply: “The only thing
I can say with some degree of certainty is that the
evolution of human brain function has changed
principally in response to the linkage between
human beings and different tool systems. It would
seem as if technology and its development leads
to a new basis of selection...surely there must be
a variety of changes in progress that resulted from
writing systems, even though writing systems
were introduced only a short time ago as far as we
reckon evolutionary time. And now, of course, we
have computers and video systems, and how long
before the selection pattern changes as a result of
these?” (1999, p. 334).
Marshall McLuhan told us “the medium is the
message” (1964, p. 23), meaning our intelligences
are shaped by the communication media we em-
ploy. Nicholas Negroponte, in his book Being
Digital (1995), tells us our digital acumen has
evolved to a point where “The medium is not the
message in a digital world. It is an embodiment