This is an allegory. It distorts a lot what it intends to allude.
There was an article the other day about new documents uncovered in King’s College. The papers are by Newton and describe a dream he had. In this dream he discovered the key to the alchemist’s stone and used the stone to gaze back in time, to see who had built the stone hedges near his house.
He saw primitive sapiens, nasty brutish and short. Suddenly a spinning city, covered in lights and spires and towers of every shape and colour came down from the sky. A strange creature came out of the craft and said to a primitive man nearby, (somehow Newton could understand their words), “I want to give you a gift.” And he gave the man a book.
“You, over there,” the entity pointed to Newton.
“How can you see me? I am looking through a magic portal!”, Newton did not know that he was also dreaming.
“No matter. Let me explain what this book is, since you’re so obviously desperate to know.
“It is a/like piece of technology. It creates ideas in those that read it. Its vaults and gears and pipes are semiotic.
“With language one can think of numbers (then sums, then equations, then theorems). With language, one can think of thoughts (then concepts, then relationships, then paradigms). With language, one can think of one’s actions (then intentions, then ethos, then will). This book is a language within a language, and contains the former in the latter.”
“But these apes are too stupid to understand those things!” explained Newton.
“You underestimate me, small ape. This technology unfolds itself.”
The documents end there. Personally, I doubt their legitimacy. After all, if Newton was so smart that he could invent an alchemist’s stone, then why hasn’t it had any effect on the world?
