From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Mar 02 2003 - 21:58:56 MST
Nate writes
> I think that Video is a much better medium than Writing. It will have huge
> impacts on the general public when anyone can make and distribute them.
It already has. The generations coming up just aren't up to 19th
century standards of literacy (given the same educational investment
time). At least when I read what those people wrote back and forth
to each other in their letters---often when they were just teens---
I realize that there is no way I was in their league at the same
age, and even now probably am not. But one only needs to read the
Gettysburg Address or any number of other works to see the difference.
> If a book could be completely changed, without leaving anything out,
> into video it would be a much better source.
That's an awfully big "if". You simply couldn't write a video
that explicates, for example, economics. Too many abstractions.
Yet understanding these abstractions is essential to understanding
how the world really works.
> Our minds will change and eventually learn to accept information
> in video form as well as we do in written form.
We'll be vastly the poorer for it, although the prejudice you
have against the written word is extremely common, I've noticed,
in people under 30. A highly intelligent friend of mine simply
cannot stand to read anything substantial (except computer
manuals) because the bandwidth bothers him so. Why should he
read a book when he can absorb ten or a hundred times as much
information while watching a movie? A large part of his
intelligence is simply going to waste IMO.
> The alphabet is Primitive. Only 26 letters for English.
> It's time to move on.
The alphabet may actually be the most advanced form of writing.
The other systems, logographic and syllabic, are probably less
desirable and efficient on the whole. When you look at a
logographic character, e.g., Chinese, you may or may not exactly
remember what it means. A row of them, even with their inevitable
punctuation markings, don't tend to afford amateur readers of
Japanese or Chinese the yes/no meanings we have with alphabetical
(i.e. fewer than 40 symbols) or syllabaries (80-200) characters.
Kids a lot brighter than most Western children nonetheless have
to spend eight years or more to become capable of reading Chinese,
whereas it takes about half that time to learn to read a
language based on an alphabet.
Best of all, alphabets allow you to easily look up words in a
dictionary. You ought to see how they organize Chinese dictionaries!
Quite often, videos and CDs do enhance understanding. "A picture
is worth a thousand words." But an equally great truth, though
not an opposite is, "A word can be worth a thousand pictures."
How many pictures would it take to convey "expropriate",
"contemptible", or "increasing rarefaction"?
Lee
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