4 ms·

Plato was against writing, as it makes us dumber. https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/ https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/

FollowingTheDao 1y ago
Sounds like you’re saying this in favor of AI, but I’m taking it as a just favor of both AI and writing.
neom 1y ago
Bit tangential, but I find oral traditions really interesting, the sheer scale of what can be done is quite impressive: https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/04/08/aboriginal-songlines-helped-draw-the-map-in-australia/ https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/04/08/abo... -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songline
- mrec 1y ago
  I don't think it's too tangential. If you haven't already seen it, I suspect you'd enjoy this; it really made an impact on me when I first read it, especially the ending. https://www.fantasticanachronism.com/p/having-had-no-predecessor-to-imitate https://www.fantasticanachronism.com/p/having-had-no-predece...
tsongas4 1y ago
Physics agrees with Plato. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-dont-need-words-to-think/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-dont-need-wor... Not really sure why the geometry and color gradient of the world needs to be captured in a skeletonized syntax and semantics when our body is evolved to experience them directly.
Refreeze5224 1y ago
I imagine his memory and those of people who memorized instead of wrote were better. So by that metric, writing is making people dumber. It's just not all that relevant today, and we don't prioritize memorization to the extent Plate and the ancient Greeks probably did.
- pixl97 1y ago
  Civilization is the process of externalizing our individual needs to others. We externalize our information to books. We externalize our jobs to specialists. We externalize our shelter to home builders. We externalize our food to farmers. We externalize our water to manucipalities. Individually we may be weaker because of it. Yet in the end we are all stronger, and now billions of us can live at levels unimaginable in the past.
  - jazzyjackson 1y ago
    We're not concerned with the community aloofness Duke, we're animals, we just go where the most food is Lower the toast, most formal etiquette is useless Truth is you're equally expendable as spoon-fed
- NitpickLawyer 1y ago
  > It's just not all that relevant today, and we don't prioritize memorization to the extent Plate and the ancient Greeks probably did. Funny enough, that's kinda what we're seeing with LLMs. We're past the "regurgitate the training set" now, and we're more interested in mixing and matching stuff in the context window so we get to a desired goal (i.e. tool use, search, "thinking" and so on). How about that...
jazzyjackson 1y ago
It probably made us worse orators
timoth3y 1y ago
There is some important nuance needed. Plato was not against writing. In fact, he wrote prolifically. Plato's writings form the basis of Western Philosophy. Plato's teacher Socrates was against writing, and Plato agreed that writing is inferior to dialog in some ways; memory, inquiry, deeper understanding, etc. We know this because Plato wrote it all down. I think it would be more accurate to say that Plato appreciated the advantages of both writing and the Socratic method.
TZubiri 1y ago
That's very interesting, especially as we think of Plato as philosophy that is learned by reading. To some extent plato wrote though, which is mostly how we can learn about him, but most of his writings are dialogues between characters. Also a lot of what we know is written by his disciples.
watwut 1y ago
If only people stopped misinterpreting what past people said or wrote for facile arguments.
enneantic 1y ago
This is a great illustration of the dangers of lost context. This excerpt is a bit of the dialogue where Socrates is quoting some legend that takes place in Egypt. On other parts of the dialogue, when speaking directly, Plato says that anyone can plainly see that writing in itself is not negative. There is also a great bit where he warns that relying on texts solely to learn without guidance of other learned people opens oneself to misinterpreting the text and learning all the wrong things from it. Much like you did.

FollowingTheDao 1y ago

Sounds like you’re saying this in favor of AI, but I’m taking it as a just favor of both AI and writing.

neom 1y ago

Bit tangential, but I find oral traditions really interesting, the sheer scale of what can be done is quite impressive: https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/04/08/aboriginal-songlines-helped-draw-the-map-in-australia/ https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/04/08/abo... -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songline

mrec 1y ago
I don't think it's too tangential. If you haven't already seen it, I suspect you'd enjoy this; it really made an impact on me when I first read it, especially the ending. https://www.fantasticanachronism.com/p/having-had-no-predecessor-to-imitate https://www.fantasticanachronism.com/p/having-had-no-predece...

tsongas4 1y ago

Physics agrees with Plato. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-dont-need-words-to-think/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-dont-need-wor... Not really sure why the geometry and color gradient of the world needs to be captured in a skeletonized syntax and semantics when our body is evolved to experience them directly.

Refreeze5224 1y ago

I imagine his memory and those of people who memorized instead of wrote were better. So by that metric, writing is making people dumber. It's just not all that relevant today, and we don't prioritize memorization to the extent Plate and the ancient Greeks probably did.

pixl97 1y ago
Civilization is the process of externalizing our individual needs to others. We externalize our information to books. We externalize our jobs to specialists. We externalize our shelter to home builders. We externalize our food to farmers. We externalize our water to manucipalities. Individually we may be weaker because of it. Yet in the end we are all stronger, and now billions of us can live at levels unimaginable in the past.
- jazzyjackson 1y ago
  We're not concerned with the community aloofness Duke, we're animals, we just go where the most food is Lower the toast, most formal etiquette is useless Truth is you're equally expendable as spoon-fed
NitpickLawyer 1y ago
> It's just not all that relevant today, and we don't prioritize memorization to the extent Plate and the ancient Greeks probably did. Funny enough, that's kinda what we're seeing with LLMs. We're past the "regurgitate the training set" now, and we're more interested in mixing and matching stuff in the context window so we get to a desired goal (i.e. tool use, search, "thinking" and so on). How about that...

jazzyjackson 1y ago

It probably made us worse orators

timoth3y 1y ago

There is some important nuance needed. Plato was not against writing. In fact, he wrote prolifically. Plato's writings form the basis of Western Philosophy. Plato's teacher Socrates was against writing, and Plato agreed that writing is inferior to dialog in some ways; memory, inquiry, deeper understanding, etc. We know this because Plato wrote it all down. I think it would be more accurate to say that Plato appreciated the advantages of both writing and the Socratic method.

TZubiri 1y ago

That's very interesting, especially as we think of Plato as philosophy that is learned by reading. To some extent plato wrote though, which is mostly how we can learn about him, but most of his writings are dialogues between characters. Also a lot of what we know is written by his disciples.

watwut 1y ago

If only people stopped misinterpreting what past people said or wrote for facile arguments.

enneantic 1y ago

This is a great illustration of the dangers of lost context. This excerpt is a bit of the dialogue where Socrates is quoting some legend that takes place in Egypt. On other parts of the dialogue, when speaking directly, Plato says that anyone can plainly see that writing in itself is not negative. There is also a great bit where he warns that relying on texts solely to learn without guidance of other learned people opens oneself to misinterpreting the text and learning all the wrong things from it. Much like you did.