tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post9129222657841096125..comments2024-03-22T21:02:55.051+13:00Comments on Bat, Bean, Beam: The Platonic Half-VolleyGiovanni Tisohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-45358652763572794202008-09-22T17:36:00.000+12:002008-09-22T17:36:00.000+12:00Thank you Jake, duly added.Thank you Jake, duly added.Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-46931765690135936932008-09-22T10:59:00.000+12:002008-09-22T10:59:00.000+12:00If you're building a bibliography, I would add Kei...If you're building a bibliography, I would add Keith Thomas, ‘The Meaning of Literacy in Early Modern England’, in G. Baumann, (ed.), The Written Word: Literacy in Transition’, (Oxford, 1986). It's part of the Goody and Watt debate, and he outlines how, in the age of print, literacy was not a straightforward concept -- many people could sign their names, read particular kinds of print (most Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11926193718680225217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-62029843533750467052008-09-21T17:19:00.000+12:002008-09-21T17:19:00.000+12:00Thank you Jake, for the kind words and the great c...Thank you Jake, for the kind words and the great contribution. "We may forget our search terms," I'm going to hold on to that - you could do a great reading of some of the stories of amnesia that crop up so frequently in the culture these days - think <I>Memento</I> among very many others - using that phrase as your interpretive key. The flipside, as you also hint at, is that when you have too Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-24048124833510044732008-09-21T12:09:00.000+12:002008-09-21T12:09:00.000+12:00So, if I can follow up on my last comment, I wonde...So, if I can follow up on my last comment, I wonder if we could draw an extremely generalised schematic regarding memory in different ages of writing technology. If Goody an Watt are to believed, in oral cultures, memory is synonymous with the performance of memory and the past, and a society with written history sees a divide between memory residing individuals and a sanctified past residing in Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11926193718680225217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-18293370993317561922008-09-21T10:47:00.000+12:002008-09-21T10:47:00.000+12:00I think it's worth bearing in mind Rosalind Thomas...I think it's worth bearing in mind Rosalind Thomas' (Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece, (Cambridge, 1992)) point that literacy and orality in classical Greece might not have been the binary distinction that we make it out to be, and that the written word might have been a supplement to oral performance, rather than a substitute for it. <BR/><BR/>She is arguing against Goody and Watt's work (Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11926193718680225217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-58546610900313156592008-09-20T02:56:00.000+12:002008-09-20T02:56:00.000+12:00Thanks for the kind words. I do find memory as a t...Thanks for the kind words. I do find memory as a topic very interesting and, since I work in technology, even if on the creative side, I think I will be checking your blog regularly.<BR/><BR/>The two books you mention looks very interesting, and if I didn't have the crazy life I have, I'd probably read them. I'll have to save them (with many others) for the years to come, when my kids start Taramochttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04997006655488913070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-70545972585858493562008-09-18T12:40:00.000+12:002008-09-18T12:40:00.000+12:00Those are some really crucial points, I think, and...Those are some really crucial points, I think, and you are right: we learned to use writing intelligently, just as we had learned to store information in other people by means of language. It's what some commentators refer to as the prosthetic relationship with our memory technologies, and there's every reason to believe it will hold true of the computer as well. <BR/><BR/>There are a couple of Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-66321992260616799132008-09-18T07:16:00.000+12:002008-09-18T07:16:00.000+12:00As a non-expert reader, it seems to me that Plato ...As a non-expert reader, it seems to me that Plato didn't realize a big shift in paradigm was going to occur with the introduction of the written word. The human mind has to switch from actually remembering things to remembering where and how things are stored, so they can be re-accessed and relearned again if necessary. <BR/><BR/>Also, it has to remember how to use the tools needed to access Taramochttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04997006655488913070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-52741423362094445012008-09-16T14:04:00.000+12:002008-09-16T14:04:00.000+12:00I think your pessimism is undeserved at this time....<I>I think your pessimism is undeserved at this time.</I><BR/><BR/>I don't know if it's <I>my</I> pessimism, but I do find that pessimism has a role to play. This is something that Stewart Brand (someone I have a lot of time for) <A HREF="http://www.longnow.org/views/essays/articles/writtenonwind.php" REL="nofollow">wrote in 1998</A>:<BR/><BR/><I>We are in the process of building one vast global Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-79543622868467259512008-09-16T10:03:00.000+12:002008-09-16T10:03:00.000+12:00History isn't based on what is recorded, history i...History isn't based on what is recorded, history is based on what survives. There may have been a philosopher who was more insightful on this issue than Plato, but we'll never know because he didn't write his stuff down.<BR/><BR/>But ever time we create a new form of communication we figure out more quickly that the form is important historically more quickly than we did the last time. I think Grunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03308246886810700890noreply@blogger.com