Within the grasp of our fingertips, an entire civilization unfolds, a lineage is traced back hundreds of years, and the power exists to alter our physical perception of anyone, including ourselves. This is the digital age, and to understand why this is feasible, or specifically why we’d desire such content so close, we may look at the Middle Ages and the concept of Girdle Books. Through that moment in history, among many others sharing the need for information at hand, it is revealed that codices and electronic devices are extensions of the human.

Our knowledge both expands and limits our freedom of expression. This concept seems simple enough, as a student undergoing med school may read a plethora of medical textbooks, allowing them to go on and on about whatever subject they wish, so long as it is medically related. Though in this performance, the student may be limited in their articulation of sheetrock repair or any other area they disregarded in place of studying medicine. In our day and age, with the excess of information, this isn’t as common an issue, though applying it to the Middle Ages is drastically different. 

With no internet and the time being before the Gutenberg press, Girdle Books largely determined one’s area of interest or expertise. An important choice of diction from Chapter 2 of The Book furthers this claim when looking at this sentence describing Girdle Books as “an oversized soft leather cover whose flaps could be looped under one’s belt for easy consultation on the go.” Notice how Borsuk chose the word consultation, rather than enjoyment, reading, or any other word for examining a book. This is because the owners were largely monks, professionals, and individuals who possessed relevant knowledge they could then apply to whatever circumstance. Of course, there were the select wealthy individuals who held knowledge with no “real” reason for it, but even then, the reason may be to gloat about their expanse of knowledge, useful or not.

With our accessible knowledge continuously expanding, there may be a point of collective knowing. This is speculative, of course, but I think all fun things are. As cellphones are the new girdle books, already multiplying our information at hand by an absurd amount, I am curious what technology will take the place of cellphones. Is imagining a society that collectively is tapped into an all-knowing AI that far off? Value could lie in the undigitized creations of mankind or the critical thought aspect. But honestly, is it unreasonable to imagine a doctor who’s programmed with all the knowledge necessary to achieve excellence in his division? Or is a human being just in the way at that point in the future? And lastly, off my main point, could all-knowing humans even be unique at that point? I pose this to the aether, and to any future person able to answer this question one day, until it’s finally true.