---
abstract: "Brian Rotman argues that (one) 'mind' and (one) 'god' are only conceivable, literally, because of (alphabetic) literacy, which allowed us to designate each of these ghosts as an incorporeal, speaker-independent 'I' (or, in the case of infinity, a notional agent that goes on counting forever). I argue that to have a mind is to have the capacity to feel. No one can be sure which organisms feel, hence have minds, but it seems likely that one-celled organisms and plants do not, whereas animals do. So minds originated before humans and before language --hence, a fortiori, before writing, whether alphabetic or ideographic."
altloc: []
chapter: ~
commentary: ~
commref: ~
confdates: ~
conference: ~
confloc: ~
contact_email: ~
creators_id:
- harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk
creators_name:
- family: Harnad
given: Stevan
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
date: 2009-04-12
date_type: completed
datestamp: 2009-04-12 22:41:22
department: ~
dir: disk0/00/00/64/18
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editors_id: []
editors_name: []
eprint_status: archive
eprintid: 6418
fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/text_html.png;/6418/1/tls%2Drotman%2Dpost4.htm|/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/6418/2/tls%2Drotman%2Dpost4.pdf|/style/images/fileicons/other.png;/6418/3/tls%2Drotman%2Dpost4.rtf
full_text_status: public
importid: ~
institution: ~
isbn: ~
ispublished: ~
issn: ~
item_issues_comment: []
item_issues_count: 0
item_issues_description: []
item_issues_id: []
item_issues_reported_by: []
item_issues_resolved_by: []
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keywords: 'language, evolution, consciousness, writing, mind, multimedia'
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:57:21
latitude: ~
longitude: ~
metadata_visibility: show
note: 'Review of: Brian Rotman: Becoming Beside Ourselves: Alphabet, ghosts, distributed human beings'
number: ~
pagerange: ~
pubdom: FALSE
publication: ~
publisher: ~
refereed: FALSE
referencetext: 'Rotman, Brian (2008) Becoming Beside Ourselves: Alphabet, ghosts, distributed human beings. Duke University Press'
relation_type: []
relation_uri: []
reportno: ~
rev_number: 29
series: ~
source: ~
status_changed: 2009-04-12 22:41:22
subjects:
- cog-psy
succeeds: ~
suggestions: ~
sword_depositor: ~
sword_slug: ~
thesistype: ~
title: First Person Singular
type: preprint
userid: 63
volume: ~