Nice passage, relevant excerpts (with my comments :-); >one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they can benefit or ha

Nice passage, relevant excerpts (with my comments :-); >one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they can benefit or harm those who will use them. And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. Definition of "Peer Review". >introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own Writing is an aide to Understanding which you still have to work at and internalize. >You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; Exactly right. >you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. This is so true in the Modern World where there is lots of information being created and consumed but few people understand what they have Read and/or Written. >And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.” Is he describing HN ? >When it has once been written down, every discourse roams about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it, and it doesn’t know to whom it should speak and to whom it should not. The bane of the Internet !