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I'm going to take a contrarian view on this. About 1/15 humans who have ever existed are still alive. And that includes the period before writing. I think it'
by verbify 8y ago
I'm going to take a contrarian view on this.
About 1/15 humans who have ever existed are still alive. And that includes the period before writing.
I think it's not unreasonable to think that most books have been written in the past 125 years.
I do not see any reason to deify the past. I say this as someone who has read the Bible in the original Hebrew and the Talmud in original Aramaic. They're of interest as a window to a different time, but fundamentally they're probably no smarter than many people today, and they have less mental tools and worse nutrition (which is linked to intelligence).
- inimino 8y agoThis doesn't address Lewis's point that all those books written in the last 125 years share more of our perspective and our biases than something written a thousand years ago. Furthermore it's not just that they are old, but that they are old and have survived that recommends old books to us.
- verbify 8y agoI thought I addressed perspective in my post. In addition often all you have to do to change your perspective is go to another continent. There's also an element of survivorship bias. The Antikythera Mechanism, while not a book, is amazing, yet it and devices like it and its instruction manual didn't survive through the ages. Many books on the minutiae of the regiments and classification of angels did.