“. . . this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls . . . the specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory but to reminiscence . . .” (Plato [*])

“Enough appears to have been said…”” from Phaedrus by Plato. Librivox [*]

We are aware of the contradiction of Plato’s writing against writing, but we can learn from Postman’s [*] comments in The Judgement of Thamus.  Writing and its remediations have redefined memory and wisdom, and so redefine us.

As literate persons, it is difficult for us to imagine what memory would mean in a primary oral culture (Ong [*]).  Cicero’s view of memory (quoted in right side-bar), as writing in the mind, is the product of a literate person.  Bush [*], writing at the dawn of computer technology, envisioned a new model of memory.

“The ability to store, secure in writing and therefore to revisit our own thinking has facilitated a more structured way of thinking, less fleeting and precarious. […] Homo Scribens is not simply Homo Oralis plus writing, it is a whole other thing.” (Maldonado, quoted by Quaggiotto [*])

Have the pioneers of hypertext created the next “link” in human evolution?

In his demonstration of NLS, does Doug Engelbart reveal a new computer system, or a new way of being human?