Great Works I: Remixing Memory

After reading these three articles I have another perspective of more effective ways of learning. I studied Philosophy couple years ago and I was concerned that Socrates’ method for learn more was based in oral conversations and not in writing. Socrates has an interesting point of view were the only way that we are able to learn is through talking and conversation, that was the way that he use to teach to his students. In a sense I think that it is a good point of view because you will pay more attention to the people when they talk since is the only resource of knowledge, also you will hang around wise and people with the same interests as you for obtain more information of what you will like to know. It also true that the human being has limits and ¨you are limited to what you can hold in your mind¨(1) and as I said I think it is a good idea to get knowledge from the oral conversations but it is not the better one. Sometimes we need to retain some information or others we will like to leave alive some of our memories by writing them because by talking everything could change.  I think it’s a good way of ¨reminiscence¨ (2). Plato, Socrates’ student is writing the dialogues that Socrates was having. For me is not contradicted, as I think he could thought that the wise Socrates had to be remembered by everyone and known in the future therefore he had to write down their wisest and complex ideas about the knowledge.

Nowadays this writing has become excessive and not even in a proper grammatically way. The new technologies as Internet has become as in machines were we find the information rapidly that in old ages ¨but it comes at a price; we lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the we or in print¨(3) We are so use to read over the paragraphs, to get hundreds of sources on Internet to find what we are looking for, that we became lazy  and once we have to read more than one paragraphs to get the content we need we get tired and change the page. That’s so true and I TOTALLY AGREE, with the LAZINESS that the INTERNET had created. I love it, but it had create a great problem among the people, specially has the teenagers. Personally I lost the ability, if I had it before, of reading long texts or of searching through a long prose without changing of article or website as soon as I don’t see what I need right away. This great article open my mind, and if you don’t exercise your brain reading it will not come naturally to us because it is not a characteristic that we need to live that is why we do not born with that ability and we have to work on it.

Socrates mainly focuses on the fact that writing takes away a person’s intelligence but he never once disucusses how people would share their views or knowledge when they die.  How would we learn how to cook new recipes or learn about the make-up of a cell if the written word didn’t exist?  Socrates only speaks about the negative aspects of the written word and not the positive ones.  Socrates says, “…once written down they are tossed about anywhere among those who do and and among those who do not understand them,” (97), but he does not mention anything about people in the future who may come across this speech and completely understand it and be able to relate to it.

Nicholas Carr agrees with this idea in “The Oral World vs. The Written Word”.  He even says “But literacy ‘is absolutely necessary for the development not only of science but also of history, philosophy, explicative understanding of literature and of any art, and indeed for the explanation of language…” (3).  Nicholas Carr also mentions that during Plato’s days poetry was the main source of knowledge.

Nicholas Carr’s argument in “Is Google Making Us Stupid” makes an immense amount of sense.  While reading about the author’s tendency to skim written works I found myself skimming.  The internet has definitely changed society’s way of thinking.  Many of my peers do not read unless its required of them.  Nicholas Carr writes, “the more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing,” (2), which makes sense because everything on the internet is short and to the point.  The more time a person spends on the internet, the less likely they are going to be interested in reading something that is long and drawn out.  Since the internet is becoming more popular with society every day, the rate for voluntary reading is greatly decreasing.