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"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, p
by rKarpinski 3y ago
"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them" - Socrates
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ctrw 3y agoAnd he was right. The recall people were capable of on prelitersts societies was astonishing. Everyone got dumber but society benefited because recalling was harder than reading.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y agoPeople think in binaries whether they realise it or not. The idea that something was lost or weakened when writing became the dominant means of encoding information for long term storage is a difficult idea for most people to grapple with.
- ctrw 3y agoIt used to be normal to memorise hour long speeches in the ancient world. Today people struggle with 20 lines. You can make the case that nothing of value was lost, but something was definitely lost.
- moffkalast 3y agoWell he wasn't wrong, in a sense. If I know I can check something somewhere at any time I'll never really remember it, just the vague notion of it and the process for looking it up. It has to be some sort of mental optimization that offloads what isn't critical to remember. It still amazes me how in the ancient world they were capable of successfully transferring information from generation to generation through pure word of mouth, accurately remembering all aspects to a T. It just seems impossible now.