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not who you are replying to - but: Shakespeare was limited by the number of interactions he had with humans. He did not have the internet. We also have neurolo

not who you are replying to - but: Shakespeare was limited by the number of interactions he had with humans. He did not have the internet. We also have neurology as a science now. So that's one bit of evidence for the claim. Of course Shakespeare had a profound understanding of human nature. And of course he did not have the working vocabulary and knowledge base of modern psychology which has been built up over time by many humans working together. Two things can be true.

kstrauser 1y ago
Hard disagree. I made an analogy in another reply to Monet not knowing quantum physics. Lacking that information didn’t deter his famous explorations of light effects. Humans are great at figuring out how things behave before we have a great model of why they do it. And by Shakespeare’s time, we had a pretty good grasp on practical human psychology, even if we had less understanding of the mechanisms behind it.
- altruios 1y ago
  We are excellent at figuring things out. We get better at it over time, as we grow our collective knowledge base. I agree that we are great at figuring out things before we have a model of why things work. And we have a mountain of context to work from already. Shakespeare wasn't an idiot, and he wasn't in a vacuum but his 'context window' was 'smaller' than a lot of people today(quotes because dubious terminology). Art is improving. Science is improving. human understanding, and communication of that understanding is improving too. That is my point.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    I won't argue against that at all. Someday we're going to have someone with Shakespeare's brilliance and modern foundations, and I can't wait to see what that looks like. (And maybe we already do have that person. I'm shamefully out of date with modern literature.)
KineticLensman 1y ago
> Of course Shakespeare had a profound understanding of human nature. And of course he did not have the working vocabulary and knowledge base of modern psychology which has been built up over time by many humans working together. Two things can be true. Yes, but this doesn't prove that a modern author could produce a better text than a historically great author, which was the original line of thought. Or is there a specific modern text that you have in mind that proves the point?
- altruios 1y ago
  Define 'better'... How about 'more accurate' as a measure... Then every text book is an example of this measure of better improving over time... How about 'more representative of the human experience'... (or enjoy/like more) Then we measure how well a human relates to a book: which is taste, a subjective quality that is notoriously hard to measure in any meaningful way. This measure becomes not a single measure, but a collective measure against the sum of humans who interact with it: an untenable standard - and biased towards the present anyway - which doesn't give charity to your position. ...So how do you measure a book to be 'better'? That's the neat part: you don't. You can measure what you 'like' more, you can measure 'features'... but we probably won't even agree on what makes a book 'better'. We like what we like, and most of us have a hard time even explaining why we like something.
graemep 1y ago
> not who you are replying to - but: Shakespeare was limited by the number of interactions he had with humans. He did not have the internet. The internet may increase the number of interactions, but decreases their quality. Looking at most online interactions it looks to me that people show less empathy and understanding than they do IRL. > Of course Shakespeare had a profound understanding of human nature. And of course he did not have the working vocabulary and knowledge base of modern psychology which has been built up over time by many humans working together. Two things can be true. Does that help write better books. If the claim was true the best fiction would be written by psychologists and neurologists. Is it? I think that knowledge is on the wrong side (for writing fiction) of Chesterton's distinction (in a work of fiction - I cannot remember which Fr Brown story) between understanding someone from the inside with empathy and from the outside with analysis.

kstrauser 1y ago

Hard disagree. I made an analogy in another reply to Monet not knowing quantum physics. Lacking that information didn’t deter his famous explorations of light effects. Humans are great at figuring out how things behave before we have a great model of why they do it. And by Shakespeare’s time, we had a pretty good grasp on practical human psychology, even if we had less understanding of the mechanisms behind it.

altruios 1y ago
We are excellent at figuring things out. We get better at it over time, as we grow our collective knowledge base. I agree that we are great at figuring out things before we have a model of why things work. And we have a mountain of context to work from already. Shakespeare wasn't an idiot, and he wasn't in a vacuum but his 'context window' was 'smaller' than a lot of people today(quotes because dubious terminology). Art is improving. Science is improving. human understanding, and communication of that understanding is improving too. That is my point.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  I won't argue against that at all. Someday we're going to have someone with Shakespeare's brilliance and modern foundations, and I can't wait to see what that looks like. (And maybe we already do have that person. I'm shamefully out of date with modern literature.)

KineticLensman 1y ago

> Of course Shakespeare had a profound understanding of human nature. And of course he did not have the working vocabulary and knowledge base of modern psychology which has been built up over time by many humans working together. Two things can be true. Yes, but this doesn't prove that a modern author could produce a better text than a historically great author, which was the original line of thought. Or is there a specific modern text that you have in mind that proves the point?

altruios 1y ago
Define 'better'... How about 'more accurate' as a measure... Then every text book is an example of this measure of better improving over time... How about 'more representative of the human experience'... (or enjoy/like more) Then we measure how well a human relates to a book: which is taste, a subjective quality that is notoriously hard to measure in any meaningful way. This measure becomes not a single measure, but a collective measure against the sum of humans who interact with it: an untenable standard - and biased towards the present anyway - which doesn't give charity to your position. ...So how do you measure a book to be 'better'? That's the neat part: you don't. You can measure what you 'like' more, you can measure 'features'... but we probably won't even agree on what makes a book 'better'. We like what we like, and most of us have a hard time even explaining why we like something.

graemep 1y ago

> not who you are replying to - but: Shakespeare was limited by the number of interactions he had with humans. He did not have the internet. The internet may increase the number of interactions, but decreases their quality. Looking at most online interactions it looks to me that people show less empathy and understanding than they do IRL. > Of course Shakespeare had a profound understanding of human nature. And of course he did not have the working vocabulary and knowledge base of modern psychology which has been built up over time by many humans working together. Two things can be true. Does that help write better books. If the claim was true the best fiction would be written by psychologists and neurologists. Is it? I think that knowledge is on the wrong side (for writing fiction) of Chesterton's distinction (in a work of fiction - I cannot remember which Fr Brown story) between understanding someone from the inside with empathy and from the outside with analysis.