John Donne knew that an island is a bad metaphor for a man, so Jack Balkin has provided a new comparison for humans: a computer. Balkin's Cultural Software is now up and free for reading and annotation. Cultural Software suggests a new method to explaining why cultures of the same species evolve so differently. Human minds are somewhat like computers, transferring "software," or social learning, communication skills, and relevant information, to other people. Administering justice is an important situation in which humans rely on the software that has been transmitted or passed down to them and also one in which the software sometimes fails. Legal problems that involve new generations in new circumstance than those in which the software was "written," or in ones that occur in multicultural atmospheres, can be helped or hindered by our cultural software.
Posted by admin on July 22, 2008
Tags: Jack Balkin
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