(Apology: The question "How has the Internet changed the way you
think?" is a difficult one for me to answer in an interesting
way; the truth is, I use the Internet as an appliance, and it
hasn't profoundly changed the way I think, at least not yet. So
I've taken the liberty of interpreting the question more
broadly, in the form "How should the Internet, or its
descendants, affect how people like me think?") If controversies
were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation
between two philosophers than between two accountants. For it
would suffice to take their pencils in their hands, to sit down
to the slates, and to say to each other (with a friend as
witness, if they liked): "Let us calculate." — Leibniz (1685)
Clearly Leibniz was wrong here, for without disputation
philosophers would cease to be philosophers. And it is difficult
to see how any amount of calculation could settle, for example,
the question of free will. But if we replace, in Leibniz'
visionary program, "sculptors of material realit