We can guess what Plato said about the invention of writing nearly 2,500 years ago.
Plato, widely considered the father of Western philosophy, viewed the practice of writing as an innovative technology, just as blockchain is seen today for its technological innovation.
Let’s see what he says in his work entitled “Phèdre”, through his famous avatar, Socrates, on the invention of writing and you will easily guess the parallels.
Plato writes:
“Among the ancient gods of Naucratis in Egypt there was one named Theuth, and it was he who discovered number and reckoning, geometry and astronomy, and the games of checkers and dice, and especially the writing.
Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Ammon. Theuth came to exhibit his arts to him and urged him to spread them to all Egyptians…
When they came to writing, Theuth said, “O King, here is something which, when learned, will make the Egyptians wiser and improve their memory; I discovered a potion for memory and for wisdom. Ammon, however, replied, “O Theuth most expert, one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they may benefit or harm those who will use them. And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are.
Indeed, it will introduce oblivion into the souls of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others. , instead of trying to remember the inside, completely on their own. You haven’t discovered a potion for remembering, but for remembering; you give your students the appearance of wisdom, not its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much when most of them will know nothing.
These words translated from Plato’s “Phèdre” dialogues are about the words themselves, and they are nearly 2,500 years old. But don’t they look familiar to you? A new technology promises to dramatically improve memory, but it can be observed to do the opposite, “bringing forgetfulness into the soul”, as the price of the trust the new technology has cleverly earned.
Did Plato underestimate the contribution of writing technology? It’s easy to say yes, with 2,500 years of hindsight and all the benefits that writing brings us today. But can we put ourselves in the shoes of the “most expert Theuth” and make the same lofty claims for blockchain? We can’t wait to try it, because we deeply believe in the profound mnemonic implications of this new form of writing that only the most catastrophic natural or man-made disasters could erase. If it isn’t “a potion for memory”, if not “wisdom”, then nothing could be.
Plato, speaking through Socrates and the god-king Ammon, surely has the same criticism for blockchain as he had for writing. But would he also underestimate in this case? HistoryDAO is an unabashed champion of blockchain, so we stand before this seminal Titan of all thought and respectfully say “yes!” But we take a number of important points:
- Let’s admit that we are closer to the one who “can give rise to the elements of an art” and not to the other “who can judge how they can benefit or harm those who will use them”. It is therefore up to us to win the judgment of others.
- Just as Plato expected, mnemonic technologies are showing significant signs of changing the way we remember things, perhaps for the worse. We certainly lose the habit of memorizing things that we used to commit before. It is now too easy to use our smartphones to look up names, directions, dates, phone numbers, recipes, formulas, etc., rather than memorizing them like we used to.
- We should carefully consider the type of “potion” we have. What distinction was Plato trying to make between “remembering” and “remembering”? And what is the meaning of “remembering from within”?
So let us consider and answer the question of the third point with more help from Plato, for his Socrates has been challenged in the dialogues of Phaedrus as follows:
“Certainly, when our Egyptian scribe receives a written invitation to a dinner party, it tells him something new – isn’t it just reminding him of it?”
Socrates responds by making distinctions between different levels of finality. In fact, he reminds his challenger of the higher level of conversation they are having, diving into the mundane world he had momentarily fallen into:
“Obviously, when I said that the written word can only serve to remind us of what we know, I did not mean it in this general sense… It is only the highest kind of knowledge, knowledge of the object itself, the knowable and the truly real being, which the written word cannot teach us. In other words, not a picture of a circle, but the real circle. Not the picture of a bee, but the real bee.
Of course, writing is very practical for all kinds of daily activities, which have nothing to do with the affairs of the soul. It’s a different conversation that Plato’s Socrates isn’t interested in having. Plato reminds us of the supreme priority of wisdom and truth over worldly concerns. According to Plato, nothing can be called progress if wisdom and truth do not define this progress. In other words, we have gained nothing if we have only gained air conditioning, medicine, smart phones, trips to the moon, etc. All of this is nothing without wisdom and knowledge of the truth. And writing, it seems, does not provide such a means of transport according to Plato.
But reminders, no doubt, are extremely useful, so all is not lost. After all, we wouldn’t know anything about Plato without the “reminders” that he himself committed in writing. So where does wisdom and truth come from if writing is disqualified?
Socrates is of course delighted to answer:
“Only when a student has thought long, in speeches and examples, and been tested, pupil and teacher asking and answering questions of goodwill and without envy – only then, when reason and knowledge are at the very end of human effort…”
According to Plato, therefore, true knowledge can only come from speech. Plato has many ways to express this thought, and this is where HistoryDAO is particularly inspired. We are bold enough to affirm before the father of all Western philosophy, in the manner of Theuth to Ammon, that the blockchain is the most irrefutable system of “reminders” yet known to humanity. We didn’t invent it ourselves, but what an invention! And by building a community around it in a way that facilitates free speech, we can also have a path to truth and wisdom.
We can guess what Plato said about the invention of writing nearly 2,500 years ago.
Plato, widely considered the father of Western philosophy, viewed the practice of writing as an innovative technology, just as blockchain is seen today for its technological innovation.
Let’s see what he says in his work entitled “Phèdre”, through his famous avatar, Socrates, on the invention of writing and you will easily guess the parallels.
Plato writes:
“Among the ancient gods of Naucratis in Egypt there was one named Theuth, and it was he who discovered number and reckoning, geometry and astronomy, and the games of checkers and dice, and especially the writing.
Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Ammon. Theuth came to exhibit his arts to him and urged him to spread them to all Egyptians…
When they came to writing, Theuth said, “O King, here is something which, when learned, will make the Egyptians wiser and improve their memory; I discovered a potion for memory and for wisdom. Ammon, however, replied, “O Theuth most expert, one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they may benefit or harm those who will use them. And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are.
Indeed, it will introduce oblivion into the souls of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others. , instead of trying to remember the inside, completely on their own. You haven’t discovered a potion for remembering, but for remembering; you give your students the appearance of wisdom, not its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much when most of them will know nothing.
These words translated from Plato’s “Phèdre” dialogues are about the words themselves, and they are nearly 2,500 years old. But don’t they look familiar to you? A new technology promises to dramatically improve memory, but it can be observed to do the opposite, “bringing forgetfulness into the soul”, as the price of the trust the new technology has cleverly earned.
Did Plato underestimate the contribution of writing technology? It’s easy to say yes, with 2,500 years of hindsight and all the benefits that writing brings us today. But can we put ourselves in the shoes of the “most expert Theuth” and make the same lofty claims for blockchain? We can’t wait to try it, because we deeply believe in the profound mnemonic implications of this new form of writing that only the most catastrophic natural or man-made disasters could erase. If it isn’t “a potion for memory”, if not “wisdom”, then nothing could be.
Plato, speaking through Socrates and the god-king Ammon, surely has the same criticism for blockchain as he had for writing. But would he also underestimate in this case? HistoryDAO is an unabashed champion of blockchain, so we stand before this seminal Titan of all thought and respectfully say “yes!” But we take a number of important points:
- Let’s admit that we are closer to the one who “can give rise to the elements of an art” and not to the other “who can judge how they can benefit or harm those who will use them”. It is therefore up to us to win the judgment of others.
- Just as Plato expected, mnemonic technologies are showing significant signs of changing the way we remember things, perhaps for the worse. We certainly lose the habit of memorizing things that we used to commit before. It is now too easy to use our smartphones to look up names, directions, dates, phone numbers, recipes, formulas, etc., rather than memorizing them like we used to.
- We should carefully consider the type of “potion” we have. What distinction was Plato trying to make between “remembering” and “remembering”? And what is the meaning of “remembering from within”?
So let us consider and answer the question of the third point with more help from Plato, for his Socrates has been challenged in the dialogues of Phaedrus as follows:
“Certainly, when our Egyptian scribe receives a written invitation to a dinner party, it tells him something new – isn’t it just reminding him of it?”
Socrates responds by making distinctions between different levels of finality. In fact, he reminds his challenger of the higher level of conversation they are having, diving into the mundane world he had momentarily fallen into:
“Obviously, when I said that the written word can only serve to remind us of what we know, I did not mean it in this general sense… It is only the highest kind of knowledge, knowledge of the object itself, the knowable and the truly real being, which the written word cannot teach us. In other words, not a picture of a circle, but the real circle. Not the picture of a bee, but the real bee.
Of course, writing is very practical for all kinds of daily activities, which have nothing to do with the affairs of the soul. It’s a different conversation that Plato’s Socrates isn’t interested in having. Plato reminds us of the supreme priority of wisdom and truth over worldly concerns. According to Plato, nothing can be called progress if wisdom and truth do not define this progress. In other words, we have gained nothing if we have only gained air conditioning, medicine, smart phones, trips to the moon, etc. All of this is nothing without wisdom and knowledge of the truth. And writing, it seems, does not provide such a means of transport according to Plato.
But reminders, no doubt, are extremely useful, so all is not lost. After all, we wouldn’t know anything about Plato without the “reminders” that he himself committed in writing. So where does wisdom and truth come from if writing is disqualified?
Socrates is of course delighted to answer:
“Only when a student has thought long, in speeches and examples, and been tested, pupil and teacher asking and answering questions of goodwill and without envy – only then, when reason and knowledge are at the very end of human effort…”
According to Plato, therefore, true knowledge can only come from speech. Plato has many ways to express this thought, and this is where HistoryDAO is particularly inspired. We are bold enough to affirm before the father of all Western philosophy, in the manner of Theuth to Ammon, that the blockchain is the most irrefutable system of “reminders” yet known to humanity. We didn’t invent it ourselves, but what an invention! And by building a community around it in a way that facilitates free speech, we can also have a path to truth and wisdom.