3 ms·

Also ever since we invented the written word it has been eating our brains by killing our memory

by unsupp0rted 1y ago

risyachka 1y ago
Not really . You have to memorise much more in today’s world to be able to do any kind of work.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  I’m not sure of my retelling of events from the same day. Aboriginal storytelling is claimed to pass on events from 7k+ years ago. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00049182.2015.1077539 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00049182.2015.10...
  - chongli 1y ago
    We already know how oral cultures work: they use technologies such as rhyme, meter, music, stock characters, memory palaces, and more. If you want a good example of how powerful this stuff is, think about the last time you had a song stuck in your head.
dig1 1y ago
Quite the opposite, it was shown that reading improves memory and cognitive abilities for children [1] and older adults [2]. [1] https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/reading-for-pleasure-early-in-childhood-linked-to-better-cognitive-performance-and-mental-wellbeing https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/reading-for-pleasure-ear... [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8482376 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8482376
- readthenotes1 1y ago
  How does that compare to the population of people who memorize the Old testament or the Quran? I remember hearing that the entire epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey we're all done via memorization and only spoken... How do you think those poets memories compared to a child who reads it Bob the builder books?
  - rokkamokka 1y ago
    I watched so many reruns of Community I could recite the episodes by heart. I don't think that made the rest of my memory any better.
elric 1y ago
For those who don't get the reference, Plato thought that the written word was not a good tool for teaching/learning, because it outsources some of the thinking. Simiarly (IIRC) Socrates thought the written word wasn't great for communicating, because it lacks the nuance of face-to-face communication. I wonder if they ever realised that it could also be a giant knowledge amplifier.
- moffkalast 1y ago
  They probably did, but still preferred their old way since it took more skill. I remember some old quote about how people used to ask their parents and grandparents questions, got answers that were just as likely to be bullshit and then believed that for the rest of their life because they had no alternative info to go on. You had to invest so much time to turn a library upside down and search through books to find what you needed, if they even had the right book. Search engines solved that part, but you still needed to know what to search for and study the subject a little first. LLMs solve the final hurdle of going from the dumbest possible wrongly posed question to directly knowing exactly what to search for in seconds. If this doesn't result in a knowledge explosion I don't know what will.
- rightbyte 1y ago
  You need to take into account that books were in the price range of houses at the time. It was probably a huge waste of resources to not just talk to each other instead.
camillomiller 1y ago
Such a comment from an AI apologist definitely helps to confirm the findings of the study.

Also ever since we invented the written word it has been eating our brains by killing our memory

risyachka 1y ago

Not really . You have to memorise much more in today’s world to be able to do any kind of work.

lostlogin 1y ago
I’m not sure of my retelling of events from the same day. Aboriginal storytelling is claimed to pass on events from 7k+ years ago. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00049182.2015.1077539 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00049182.2015.10...
- chongli 1y ago
  We already know how oral cultures work: they use technologies such as rhyme, meter, music, stock characters, memory palaces, and more. If you want a good example of how powerful this stuff is, think about the last time you had a song stuck in your head.

dig1 1y ago

Quite the opposite, it was shown that reading improves memory and cognitive abilities for children [1] and older adults [2]. [1] https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/reading-for-pleasure-early-in-childhood-linked-to-better-cognitive-performance-and-mental-wellbeing https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/reading-for-pleasure-ear... [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8482376 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8482376

readthenotes1 1y ago
How does that compare to the population of people who memorize the Old testament or the Quran? I remember hearing that the entire epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey we're all done via memorization and only spoken... How do you think those poets memories compared to a child who reads it Bob the builder books?
- rokkamokka 1y ago
  I watched so many reruns of Community I could recite the episodes by heart. I don't think that made the rest of my memory any better.

elric 1y ago

For those who don't get the reference, Plato thought that the written word was not a good tool for teaching/learning, because it outsources some of the thinking. Simiarly (IIRC) Socrates thought the written word wasn't great for communicating, because it lacks the nuance of face-to-face communication. I wonder if they ever realised that it could also be a giant knowledge amplifier.

moffkalast 1y ago
They probably did, but still preferred their old way since it took more skill. I remember some old quote about how people used to ask their parents and grandparents questions, got answers that were just as likely to be bullshit and then believed that for the rest of their life because they had no alternative info to go on. You had to invest so much time to turn a library upside down and search through books to find what you needed, if they even had the right book. Search engines solved that part, but you still needed to know what to search for and study the subject a little first. LLMs solve the final hurdle of going from the dumbest possible wrongly posed question to directly knowing exactly what to search for in seconds. If this doesn't result in a knowledge explosion I don't know what will.
rightbyte 1y ago
You need to take into account that books were in the price range of houses at the time. It was probably a huge waste of resources to not just talk to each other instead.

camillomiller 1y ago

Such a comment from an AI apologist definitely helps to confirm the findings of the study.