THE questions we ask say a lot about who we are. Scientists ask, “Why does it
happen?” Engineers ask, “How does it work?” Philosophers ask, “You want fries
with that?”
Except, of course, philosophers who end up in the computer industry. They
have become incapable of uttering any sentence that doesn’t include the word
“paradigm”. This plague of paradigms is particularly obvious in the current
e-mania. E-mail and e-commerce are old hat: we’re already into e-health, e-music
and e-volution. Each new trend is not just billed as a new business tool, it’s a
“paradigm shift”.
But what does the word…
