2 ms·
The other way to look at it is that there was a sixty year span when memorizing many seven to ten digit numbers was important to us, and so that's exactly what
by gopher_space 4y ago
The other way to look at it is that there was a sixty year span when memorizing many seven to ten digit numbers was important to us, and so that's exactly what we did.
I didn't lose the ability to memorize entire books like my grandfather did, I'm just not isolated for months on end in winter like he was. It's also not the babe-attracting party trick it apparently used to be.
- WorldMaker 4y agoAs I recall even Carl Sagan commented on it at depth (and how it was good thing). For as long as people have existed we've built tools to remember things for us so we can remember other things better/learn other skills. It was a "complaint" about paper, that writing things down softened our memory skills. (People would lament about the lost traditions of storytellers that had to memorize entire stories and pass them down orally.) It didn't soften our species' memory skills, it externalized memories we didn't need in long term storage so that we could learn other things. We ended up with more stories, and arguably, better stories from paper. Just like paper, modern systems externalize memories so we can focus on other stuff. That's a feature, not a bug. Knowing we've externalized those memories we move on with our brains and use the graymatter for other activities. That's also a feature, not a bug.
- mateo1 4y agoPaper is tangible, permanent and owned by you. Digital "memories" are rented, volatile and owned by someone else.