__NOTOC__ Robert K. Logan (born August 31, 1939), originally trained as a

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, is a media ecologist.

Career

He received from MIT a BS in 1961 and a PhD in 1965 under the supervision of Francis E. Low. After two post-doctoral appointments as a research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1965-7) and the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

(1967-8), he became a physics professor in 1968 at Toronto until his retirement in 2005. He is now professor emeritus."Robert K. Logan"

faculty page. He is a fellow of St. Michael's College,

, the Origins Institute at

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood, Ontario, Ainslie Wood and Westdale, Ontario, Westd ...

and Institute of Biocomplexity and Informatics at the

University of Calgary {{Infobox university , name = University of Calgary , image = University of Calgary coat of arms without motto scroll.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms , former ...

. While active at the

, in addition to math-based physics courses he taught an interdisciplinary course – ''The Poetry of Physics'' – which led to his collaboration with

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (, ; July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media studies, media theory. Raised in Winnipeg, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba a ...

, and his research in media ecology and the evolution of language. His best known works are ''The Alphabet Effect'' – based on a paper Logan co-authored with McLuhan – which develops the hypothesis that the

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

, codified law, monotheism, abstract science and deductive logic form an autocatalytic set of ideas that developed uniquely between 2000 BC and 500 BC between the Tigris-Euphrates river system and the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

; ''The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age'' which deals with the hypothesis that speech, writing, math, science, computing and the Internet form an evolutionary chain of languages; ''The Extended Mind: The Emergence of Language, the Human Mind and Culture'' develops a model for the

origin of language The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeolog ...

, the human mind and culture using ideas from ''The Sixth Language''. Logan has also been chief scientist at Strategic Innovation Lab at

OCAD University Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD U, is a public university, public art school, art university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its main campus is located within Toronto's Grange Park (neighbourh ...

in Toronto, Ontario since 2007, and a senior fellow at the university's Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab)."Robert K. Logan"
faculty page at

Part of his work at OCAD involved a language-based project to change popular attitudes about the environment, which resulted in the coining of the word " depletist". In September 2010, Logan founded the McLuhan Legacy Network, a non-profit organization based in Toronto dedicated to renewing the legacy of Marshall McLuhan and celebrating the centenary of McLuhan's birth in 2011. Logan's work is influenced by

, Harold Innis, Alvin Toffler,

Stuart Kauffman Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939) is an American medical doctor, theoretical biology, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, Un ...

and

Terrence Deacon Terrence William Deacon (born 1950) is an American neuroanthropologist (Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, Harvard University 1984). He taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Anth ...

Awards and honors

''The Sixth Language'' won the Suzanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form in 2000 from the Media Ecology Association, and in June 2011 Logan received the Walter J. Ong Award for Career Achievement in Scholarship from the same Association."The 2011 MEA Awards"
on the Media Ecology Association website

Books

*(ed.) ''The Way Ahead for Canada''. (1977) Lester and Orpen. *with Steven.D. Berkowitz (eds.) ''Canada’s Third Option''. (1978) MacMillan Canada. *''The Fifth Language: Learning a Living in the Computer Age''. (1997) Stoddart Publishing. *with Louis W. Stokes. ''Collaborate to Compete: Driving Profitability in the Knowledge Economy'' (2004)

John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Publishing, publishing company that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company was founded in 1807 and pr ...

(Mandarin Edition ). *''The Alphabet Effect''. (2004) Hampton Press. *''The Sixth Language''. (2004) Blackburn Press. *"The Extended Mind Model of the Origin of Language and Culture" in Gontier, Nathalie; Van Bendegem, Jean Paul; and Aerts, Diederik (eds.)'' Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture''. (2005)

Springer Publishing Springer Publishing Company is an American publishing company of academic journals and books, focusing on the fields of nursing, gerontology, psychology, social work, counseling, public health, and rehabilitation (neuropsychology). It was estab ...

. *''The Extended Mind: The Emergence of Language, the Human Mind and Culture''. (2007)

University of Toronto Press The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911. The press originally printed only examination books and the university calendar. Its first s ...

. *''Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan''. (2010) Peter Lang Publishing. *''The Poetry of Physics and the Physics of Poetry''. (2010)

World Scientific Publishing World Scientific Publishing is an academic publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books and journals headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded in 1981. It publishes about 600 books annually, with more than 170 journals in var ...

. *''McLuhan Misunderstood: Setting the Record Straight''. (2013) The Key Publishing House. *''What Is Information?: Propagating Organization in the Biosphere, Symbolosphere, Technosphere and Econosphere''. (2014) *with Marshall McLuhan. ''The Future of the Library: From Electric Media to Digital Media''. (2016) Peter Lang Publishing.

References

External links

Profile on University of Toronto website
for Strategic Innovation Lab
Figure/Ground interview with Robert K. Logan. August 18th, 2010Lecture on The Origin and Evolution of LanguageAcademia.edu profileResearchgate.net profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Logan, Robert K. 1939 births Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto 21st-century American physicists