Now, one might reasonably argue, that the telephone is a substitute for (at least limited) telepathy, and radio for something like group telepathy, or even group receptivity of some form of intelligent signal.

Television was a substitute for group dreaming, which we are still capable of, and movies are essentially both dreams and myths combined. The spirit force becomes the arrow becomes the gun. You have, actually, a fully functional clock inside you, and can easily tell time, consistently, without a watch… unless you wear a watch. In other words, once we get the substitute, we only rarely have the chance to discover what it replaced — in us and our experience.

So you want to ask yourself, what is the internet a substitute for? And, more particularly, a computer? Might there be an actual internet of intelligences … alive in nature… immediately accessible to anyone capable of both recognizing it and ‘having their credentials in order’? But even more astonishing… what does ‘a computer’ replace? It is not merely a brain… but notice that amongst its myriad properties it is personal, intimate, and links you to a seemingly impossible library of… resources?