From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Feb 27 2002 - 07:18:37 MST
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steve wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jacques Du Pasquier" <jacques@dtext.com>
> > Our brain was not designed to do philosophy (nor science) as you may
> > realize. It was designed to be distracted, to react in real time to
> > threats, etc. We manage to think more refined thoughts with the aid of
> > that intellectual augmentation called writing.
>
> Very interesting post. If what you say is correct (I personally think it is)
> then what are the implications of the decline in the use of the printed word
> and the move to a more visual culture among the majority of the
> population-which I think is happening in modern societies ?
'The printed word' is subject to interpretation. I am currently printing
words here on this 'techne mediation interface'. I can guarrantee that
I've printed far more words on this mail list alone than in my entire
prior life (yeah, yeah, keep the barbs to yourself... ;)), and I would
posit this is true for most everyone who uses computers today. In the
past ten years, I would say I've easily posted over 100,000 emails to
various newsgroups, BBS's, email lists, etc over the internet, which
would be somewhere between 10-100 million words produced (yeah, yeah, go
ahead and say a billion times zero is still zero... ;) ) at the very
least. I've 'met' and exchanged far more meaningful conversations with
far more intelligent people than I would ever have met otherwise.
At the very least, I type as fast as a secretary can, and consequently
don't need one (though I could certainly use some help
organizationally).
I would have previously scoffed at philosophy and philosophers in
general as being in a group with psychiatrists, lawyers, politicians,
and bureaucrats as being individuals and careers that could dissapear
tomorrow and few of the rest of us would shed a tear (now it's just
*some* philosophers and philosophies).
I think Socrates said that the best school is a log with student sitting
on one end and teacher on the other. The log is the 'techne mediation
device'. What form it manifests itself as is really rather irrelevant,
so long as it works, and continues to become better at its task, as the
student applies what is learned to the function of the log.
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