Comment by amatic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by amatic | Hacker News Reader

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> Plato(?)

Yep, in Plato's Phaedrus. https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3439

Plato wrote the story, attributing it to Socrates. The story is about the egyptian inventor Theuth who showed his inventions of numbers, leters, etc. to the god Thamus (Ammon). The god liked the numbers, but for writing said:

> "For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem [275b] to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."

As far as I understand, this contention goes to the heart of Plato's epistemology. Platonic forms have their reification in the mind and, in particular, in memory. (As opposed to existing in some separate abstract universe.) IOW, quite literally if you haven't memorized something you have no possession of the truth. At best you enjoy a shadow of it, just like in his allegory of the cave where the physical world that you see with your eyes is merely a shadow of true reality. It's only people who have memorized something (i.e. can turn it over in their mind as a whole) who can see and understand it for what it truly is. To see reality is to quite literally possess it in your conscious mind. If all you possess are fragments, or merely knowledge about how to acquire it (i.e. know of it by reference), you possess nothing--you know nothing.

EDIT: It's a little more complex than that. I think Plato identifies the "soul" as where the forms maintain their persistence. So in a sense everybody possess reality within them. Memory is a portal into the soul; it's how you "see" it. Notably, the Christian (and especially Augustinian Catholic) concept of conscience is derived from this Platonic model. That's why Christians say that knowledge of right and wrong--as well as God, etc--is imbued within every person from conception. I doubt that that's a particularly novel idea among world religions, but the way it plays out in Christian theology is heavily derivative of Plato's model.

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