3 ms·

At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the invento

At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

alwa 7mo ago
(From Socrates’ dialog with Phaedrus) https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html#:~:text=there%20was%20a%20famous%20old%20god%2C https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html#:~:text=there%2...
- xg15 7mo ago
  > Phaedrus: Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any other country. Looks like even back then, they went "cool story bro" on that text...
CamperBob2 7mo ago
[flagged]
palmotea 7mo ago
Oh no, not that tired thing again. I suppose your point is: people once were critical of the technology of writing, so all criticism of the technology-at-hand is illegitimate. You don't actually make a point, so one has to assume. Some points: 1. Technological inventions are not repetitions of the same phenomenon. Each invention is its own unique event, you cannot generalize the experience with previous inventions to understand the effects of the latest ones. 2. Socrates may have been in large degree right. Imagine that you and your society has been locked in the sewers, condemned to wade in shit for so long that you and your ancestors long ago forgot what fresh air feels like. What would you think about your life? Would you think "this is horrible" or "this is fine"? Or maybe "I enjoy smell of shit and we're so much better off because we don't have to worry about sunburn"?
- partyficial 7mo ago
  he(zozbot234) could also be agreeing with OP, not disagreeing. I don't remember phone numbers anymore. If I were to lose my phone, or the cloud, I'm SOL re-adding everyone.
  - pixl97 7mo ago
    I mean, it's most likely because you have an absolute shit load of numbers/contacts in your phone. In the old days people just had rolodexes filled with numbers and if that disappeared they were just as screwed. I remember a few numbers of my most direct contacts and depend on backups for everything else.
  - rrr_oh_man 7mo ago
    > he(zozbot234) could also be agreeing with OP, not disagreeing. This is how I for one understood this.
- gallerdude 7mo ago
  1. You can't understand the nuances, but there is a general pattern: new inventions may make us slightly less proficient at specifics, yet more powerful overall 2. Imagine a hunter gatherer is time travelled to 2026. You have lunch go to a cafe with him, and he learns that food is cheap, delicious, and abundant. He sees your house, and thinks it's amazing compared to his cave. He thinks that 2026 must be absolute paradise. You explain to him, well kinda, but also not really. Is the hunter gatherer right?
reg_dunlop 7mo ago
Impressive. Thanks for the share. I was thinking about this recently: The difference between systemic (systematic) learning and opportunistic learning. AI enables opportunistic learning, or Just-in-time (JIT) learning. It give the impression of infinite knowledge. Most general concepts are well within the grasp of human understanding. My curiosity RE the difference between systemic v opportunistic learning was the effect of longer-termed exposure/use to a tool that enables opportunistic learning.
eaglelamp 7mo ago
You're misinterpreting the quote. Socrates is saying that being able to find a written quotation will replace fully understanding a concept. It's the difference between being able to quote the pythagorean theorem and understanding it well enough to prove it. That's why Socrates says that those who rely on reading will be "hard to get along with" - they will be pedantic without being able to discuss concepts freely. Likewise with AI the appearance of reasoning without the substance could lead to boring exchanges of plausible slop rather than meaningful discourse.
- pixl97 7mo ago
  I mean Socrates said enough stuff that was wrong or didn't have any scientific understanding either. Simply put at humanity wide scales written information is by far the most important thing you can have. There is kind of a Sortie's paradox occurring where you have individual knowledge that can be held by one person conflicts with systems knowledge that has to be redundant and can be easily transferred.
user3939382 7mo ago
This is actually a great criticism. Post Enlightenment we’ve come to worship the written word as a source of truth. It’s not. Thoughts, wisdom, understanding, exist primarily (and by necessity primarily) as a continuous structure in our minds. By writing, we distill and collapse this rich continuous structure into a discrete 2D slice. It’s portable which has many benefits but we tend to forget that this written word we worship in academia is a low fidelity copy created out of necessity, not because it’s optimal. In fact, much is lost this way. The hazard is that we often end up testing for mastery of this low fidelity discretization rather than the knowledge structure it shadows.
- layer8 7mo ago
  On the other hand, books allow us to access a much broader selection of ideas than would otherwise be feasible. I’m not sure where LLMs lie on that spectrum. They allow faster access, but it also feels more limited.
- DangitBobby 7mo ago
  We would literally not have access to this criticism without the written word. It would have long been lost to time. And so it is with enumerate other thoughts that happily have been recorded. Before written word, the uneducated had to just take the words of the (apparently) wise as an authority on all matters, and the only access to their knowledge was through conversation with them. That's gatekeeping and siloing in one go. And authorities' thoughts themselves often form 2D slices of knowledge once they stop continually updating themselves in the know on SotA. Even if they do keep themselves updated, each conversation you've had with (what a layperson can recollect of it) is a thin 2D slice of that knowledge. I can think of practically no ways that written expertise is not better.
  - palmotea 7mo ago
    > We would literally not have access to this criticism without the written word. It would have long been lost to time. And so it is with enumerate other thoughts that happily have been recorded. No. Without the written word, this criticism would not have even existed. There would have been no point to make it. Who criticizes something that doesn't exist?
hdndjsbbs 7mo ago
The irony of quoting this particular story without providing any of the necessary context for readers. Truly an aid to reminiscence and not memory.
butlike 7mo ago
It's just a story. Doesn't mean it's wise.
moralestapia 7mo ago
This is why I come to HN, knowledgeable people enrich the discussion so much with their unique points of view. Also thanks to Mia (she/her), this was a very interesting read.
charonn0 7mo ago
> they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. This could be describing an internet argument where both parties google for expert articles that seem to support their point of view without really understanding anything about the subject.
oytis 7mo ago
It's a valid critique though. We sacrificed a lot of memory and perception capacity to literacy.

alwa 7mo ago

(From Socrates’ dialog with Phaedrus) https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html#:~:text=there%20was%20a%20famous%20old%20god%2C https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html#:~:text=there%2...

xg15 7mo ago
> Phaedrus: Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any other country. Looks like even back then, they went "cool story bro" on that text...

CamperBob2 7mo ago

[flagged]

palmotea 7mo ago

Oh no, not that tired thing again. I suppose your point is: people once were critical of the technology of writing, so all criticism of the technology-at-hand is illegitimate. You don't actually make a point, so one has to assume. Some points: 1. Technological inventions are not repetitions of the same phenomenon. Each invention is its own unique event, you cannot generalize the experience with previous inventions to understand the effects of the latest ones. 2. Socrates may have been in large degree right. Imagine that you and your society has been locked in the sewers, condemned to wade in shit for so long that you and your ancestors long ago forgot what fresh air feels like. What would you think about your life? Would you think "this is horrible" or "this is fine"? Or maybe "I enjoy smell of shit and we're so much better off because we don't have to worry about sunburn"?

partyficial 7mo ago
he(zozbot234) could also be agreeing with OP, not disagreeing. I don't remember phone numbers anymore. If I were to lose my phone, or the cloud, I'm SOL re-adding everyone.
- pixl97 7mo ago
  I mean, it's most likely because you have an absolute shit load of numbers/contacts in your phone. In the old days people just had rolodexes filled with numbers and if that disappeared they were just as screwed. I remember a few numbers of my most direct contacts and depend on backups for everything else.
- rrr_oh_man 7mo ago
  > he(zozbot234) could also be agreeing with OP, not disagreeing. This is how I for one understood this.
gallerdude 7mo ago
1. You can't understand the nuances, but there is a general pattern: new inventions may make us slightly less proficient at specifics, yet more powerful overall 2. Imagine a hunter gatherer is time travelled to 2026. You have lunch go to a cafe with him, and he learns that food is cheap, delicious, and abundant. He sees your house, and thinks it's amazing compared to his cave. He thinks that 2026 must be absolute paradise. You explain to him, well kinda, but also not really. Is the hunter gatherer right?

reg_dunlop 7mo ago

Impressive. Thanks for the share. I was thinking about this recently: The difference between systemic (systematic) learning and opportunistic learning. AI enables opportunistic learning, or Just-in-time (JIT) learning. It give the impression of infinite knowledge. Most general concepts are well within the grasp of human understanding. My curiosity RE the difference between systemic v opportunistic learning was the effect of longer-termed exposure/use to a tool that enables opportunistic learning.

eaglelamp 7mo ago

You're misinterpreting the quote. Socrates is saying that being able to find a written quotation will replace fully understanding a concept. It's the difference between being able to quote the pythagorean theorem and understanding it well enough to prove it. That's why Socrates says that those who rely on reading will be "hard to get along with" - they will be pedantic without being able to discuss concepts freely. Likewise with AI the appearance of reasoning without the substance could lead to boring exchanges of plausible slop rather than meaningful discourse.

pixl97 7mo ago
I mean Socrates said enough stuff that was wrong or didn't have any scientific understanding either. Simply put at humanity wide scales written information is by far the most important thing you can have. There is kind of a Sortie's paradox occurring where you have individual knowledge that can be held by one person conflicts with systems knowledge that has to be redundant and can be easily transferred.

user3939382 7mo ago

This is actually a great criticism. Post Enlightenment we’ve come to worship the written word as a source of truth. It’s not. Thoughts, wisdom, understanding, exist primarily (and by necessity primarily) as a continuous structure in our minds. By writing, we distill and collapse this rich continuous structure into a discrete 2D slice. It’s portable which has many benefits but we tend to forget that this written word we worship in academia is a low fidelity copy created out of necessity, not because it’s optimal. In fact, much is lost this way. The hazard is that we often end up testing for mastery of this low fidelity discretization rather than the knowledge structure it shadows.

layer8 7mo ago
On the other hand, books allow us to access a much broader selection of ideas than would otherwise be feasible. I’m not sure where LLMs lie on that spectrum. They allow faster access, but it also feels more limited.
DangitBobby 7mo ago
We would literally not have access to this criticism without the written word. It would have long been lost to time. And so it is with enumerate other thoughts that happily have been recorded. Before written word, the uneducated had to just take the words of the (apparently) wise as an authority on all matters, and the only access to their knowledge was through conversation with them. That's gatekeeping and siloing in one go. And authorities' thoughts themselves often form 2D slices of knowledge once they stop continually updating themselves in the know on SotA. Even if they do keep themselves updated, each conversation you've had with (what a layperson can recollect of it) is a thin 2D slice of that knowledge. I can think of practically no ways that written expertise is not better.
- palmotea 7mo ago
  > We would literally not have access to this criticism without the written word. It would have long been lost to time. And so it is with enumerate other thoughts that happily have been recorded. No. Without the written word, this criticism would not have even existed. There would have been no point to make it. Who criticizes something that doesn't exist?

hdndjsbbs 7mo ago

The irony of quoting this particular story without providing any of the necessary context for readers. Truly an aid to reminiscence and not memory.

butlike 7mo ago

It's just a story. Doesn't mean it's wise.

moralestapia 7mo ago

This is why I come to HN, knowledgeable people enrich the discussion so much with their unique points of view. Also thanks to Mia (she/her), this was a very interesting read.

charonn0 7mo ago

> they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. This could be describing an internet argument where both parties google for expert articles that seem to support their point of view without really understanding anything about the subject.

oytis 7mo ago

It's a valid critique though. We sacrificed a lot of memory and perception capacity to literacy.