EoT Day 4
DAY 4
“The discovery of the alphabet 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”
It is indeed true that people have stopped making an effort to remember things, because it has become so easy for us now to just write down everything, set a reminder or just save the phone numbers of people. We no longer have to remember things and the primary reason for it being written language. Written language has made life easier and the man/woman lazier.
The author writes his thoughts down. When the reverse happens with the reader while he is reading these written down thoughts the interpretation of it changes, it is no longer the truth, it is that truth that the reader has understood, which might not be the same as what the author intended it to be. When this interpretation travels from person to person the end result will be very far from the truth.
Song in Plato’s opinion is “a poison, and an enemy of the people.” He says that it obstructs learning, humans tend to just sing lyrics to the tune and forget to understand its meaning. According to Greek culture, it wasn’t necessary to understand instead the only important thing was to sing the poem to evoke a psychological response in the listener. Plato attacked this ideology of the oral, poetized form for communicating knowledge.
The Beatles songs do create an environment, which is a mythical one it only exists when you are hearing the song. Even the members of the band are The Beatles only when they are together and when they sing their songs.
Is there a need to develop a powerful memory? It is true a person with a good memory might be faster than others and even have greater self-confidence, but in this world overloaded with information, even the strongest memory might doubt itself and check on the internet for accuracy of information.
We are so visually biased that we call our wisest men visionaries, or seers! People do not believe what they hear, they have to confirm it with a visual. I think this psychology of people has been harnessed in many applications and products that are and have been developed. Even I have experienced this many times when I hear a familiar sound I have an idea of its producer but this only gets confirmed when I see it.
The reverse too happens in this printed world. Authors add adjectives, adverbs, pauses and other effects to bring about an auditory sense. In everyday life when we mail or text someone we add such effects to convey the tone of the message and to bring about the auditory sensation in the reader.
John cage says that everyone is in the best seat. If music is inspired by real life, then everything you do is music. The world is a stage and theatre take place everywhere all the time and we change scenes and characters constantly. Therefore, we should just do our parts.
The concept of copyright existed because of printing. Humanity did not stop people from sharing knowledge without copyright but now the world is bent over copywriting their works. Can a person solemnly take ownership of a particular idea? Is an idea real ORIGINAL? NOO!!
All thoughts are borrowed and developed, this concept of copyright have people ideas of fame and the habit of considering intellectual effort as private property.
Television is not the same visual resource as a book. Both are perceived very differently. Showing people a life better than what they are currently, brings about a desire in the heart.
