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This essay is revived for every new technology which might seem to weaken our mental faculties. In Socrates time writing might weaken memory and rhetoric. In my
by peter303 7y ago
This essay is revived for every new technology which might seem to weaken our mental faculties. In Socrates time writing might weaken memory and rhetoric. In my lifetime it was movies, television, video games, cellphones and social media doing the same.
On the contrary, if used properly and moderately, new technology can strengthen our mental abilities.
- seventhtiger 7y agoIt's not just traditionalism. It has some merit. Let's use a computation metaphor. All external but easily accessible information is in the HDD. Nowadays it contains almost all human knowledge. But the things that are in your mind to be retrieved instantaneously are in cache. A bigger and more utilized cache is better, but for humans it takes a lot of effort to move things into cache, and our HDDs are expanding ever larger, so now people keep their cache empty and unused. Reading a poem will give you some joy and perhaps insight, but memorizing the poem will make it a part of you. It's only function is not just reciting and recalling. It makes your mind more beautiful because it has beautiful things in it. It's not about the poem. It's about you as a person. Which take me to the memory palace or method of loci. It's a mnemonic device described by the Romans where you memorize information by visualizing it as a walk through a palace with many rooms and locations. I think it was more than just a mnemonic device because embedded in that metaphor is the implication that what you memorize exists physically in your mind. If the ancient peoples tried to beautify and decorate their minds with beautiful knowledge, then the modern people have industrialized their minds and kept them brutally empty.