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Obligatory reference to Plato's Phaedrus. > Socrates: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is c
by mbrock 11y ago
Obligatory reference to Plato's Phaedrus.
> Socrates: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
- gkya 11y agoFrom my reading list about Naucratis (haven't read it yet): http://qz.com/582073/now-underwater-this-ancient-egyptian-trading-city-was-once-the-hong-kong-of-its-era/ http://qz.com/582073/now-underwater-this-ancient-egyptian-tr... Would you mind telling the passage number?
- jacquesm 11y agoIt's not obligatory, and it is a nice way to sidestep looking at the question I asked. Sure there are advantages, and I'm fully aware of those. I am just wondering if there is a dis-advantage that may be less visible. I'm not versed in this matter so my question put in simpler terms is one of attempting to see the flip side of the coin. That books and 'letters' have a downside is reasonably well documented, cultures that do not rely on writing for passing their information down from generation to generation are richly populated with people that perform feats of memory casually that astound those that rely on the written word. That the advantage lies with the 'books' faction seems to be a foregone conclusion (this is usually the case when you compare a human that is augmented with some tool against one that is not so that's a bit of an open door to kick in) but it is always important that almost everything comes with some kind of price tag and if you can't see the price tag you might make the wrong decision in some of these cases. Just like calculators cause us to become (much) worse in mental arithmetic (but we can do much more complex math in a short time even without the required skills).
- mbrock 11y agoI'm not sure how that Plato quote demonstrates any advantages. He's talking about how reliance on the written word can erode one's memory. It's precisely about the disadvantages of using external tools that replace internal faculties. I cited it to show that the founding father (if you will) of Western philosophy broadly agreed with your point about "assistants" causing us to lose useful skills.
- jacquesm 11y agoInteresting. I wonder what percentage of the readers took that one way or the other. Thank you for the addendum. Below a couple of interesting viewpoints on the 'augmented human', I had not considered those. Trying hard to imagine a modern society without the written word, and whether or not such a thing would even be possible. Imagine somehow leaping to a technological society without having writing in between, what would that society look like?
- 11y ago