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2024/08/28
2024/08/28
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Linkrot and Intellectual Stagnation
Without a durable record of knowledge, we would be stuck re-inventing the rudiments over and over, doomed to never reach any degree of sophistication exceeding that which can be developed by a single human mind over the course of a single lifetime.
Rather than "sophistication" (relating to "sophistry", i.e., something complicated a sophist has had a hand in making seem true/good), I would prefer the strictly-oral knowledge that is passed along through the generations (e.g., of the Australian aborigines, or of the Penan of Borneo). That is how all life on Earth (incl. Homo) has lived, and it has lived well. Until a few thousand years ago. I say "it" because "we" cannot be considered the same, we have devolved and forgotten.
Plato argued (in "Phaedrus", which I apparently haven't read yet?!) that writing might not be so great:
SOCRATES: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours 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. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
Plato’s Argument Against Writing
Socrates on the Invention of Writing and the Relationship of Writing to Memory
It might be true, making my wiki largely useless or counterproductive.
And if I think about it, with a minimalist body of knowledge, only what is of utmost importance will remain throughout the generations. It seems only natural: the unnecessary will be lost in time because memory is finite; what is true, how to live life, will reach the future, because otherwise the species does not live on. That is exactly what we see in all life and "primitive" tribes: they know how to build shelter, gather/hunt/fish, cook, etc.
The telephone game is not problematic either. For loner species (e.g., most felines) this should be self-evident -- they get about an year of learning, and they're ready to rock, independent. For group species, more so those with long periods of preparation for "adulthood" (e.g., primates, Homo especially so), individuals get a whole lifetime being told the message on repeat. Moreover, slight variations needn't be dangerous -- it's ok if you can't remember whether this mushroom is toxic, someone else probably will.
Strictly speaking -- not even as a supposedly emotionless stoic -- what more is there to it?
Contrast that to the early 21st century, when many written works are published exclusively on the World Wide Web. And the thing about the web is, it's quite possible to serve a web page for many people to read, from a single copy residing on single hard-drive in a single location, without ever creating and distributing redundant durable copies. So people just don't. And sooner rather than later, the single-point-of-failure fails, and all the hyperlinks pointing to it rot.
I am one of those who'd like to document and archive everything that ever existed and happened. It's one of the reasons I keep all my ebooks, magazines, papers, &c in a Syncthing-shared Calibre DB; why I'm into OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, OpenLibrary, &c; why I use BitTorrent and IPFS; why I print and bind some papers and books; and generally why I don't throw away random physical things I gather from places I visit (maps, newspapers, pamphlets, &c). Notwithstanding, it is a problem. Easier said than done, but letting go is good for the decluttering alone. And in the end, what use does all this junk have?
Why do people with hoarding disorder hoard, and how can we help?