5.0548 Memory, Media, &c. (2) (2/45)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 24 Dec 1991 13:19:11 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0548. Tuesday, 24 Dec 1991.
(1) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 91 07:37:49 MST (30 lines)
From: "don l. f. nilsen" <ATDFN@ASUACAD>
Subject: Re: 5.0546 Memory, Media, Knowledge, and Thought
(2) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1991 10:31 MST (15 lines)
From: OCRAMER@CCNODE.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: 5.0546 Memory, Media, Knowledge, and Thought
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 91 07:37:49 MST
From: "don l. f. nilsen" <ATDFN@ASUACAD>
Subject: Re: 5.0546 Memory, Media, Knowledge, and Thought (1/17)
Much of the function of ritual, ceremony, and superstition is
mnemonic in nature. A good example is the making of Samurai swords in
Japan. There is an elaborate ceremony connected with this process, and
no steps in the ceremony are ever left out. The end result is a
Samurai sword of excellent quality, and the quality of the sword would
not be possible without following the elaborate ceremony. It is
interesting that some aspects of the ceremony actually help in assuring
the quality of the sword, and other aspects of the ceremony are
irrelevant, but the sword maker doesn't know which are which, so he
faithfully follows ALL aspects of the sword maker.
Much of epistemology is affected by history. On early e-mail the
routing of messages was always given, and the routing had a perfect
correlation with the earlier history of e-mail. The message had to be
sent to each of the stations that had played a significant role in
the history of the concept. To me, this is very much like the making
of Samurai swords.
=-) ;-> 8*) {^_^}
Don L. F. Nilsen
<ATDFN@ASUACAD.BITNET>, (602) 965-7592
Executive Secretary
International Society for Humor Studies
English Department
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------23----
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1991 10:31 MST
From: OCRAMER@CCNODE.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: 5.0546 Memory, Media, Knowledge, and Thought (1/17)
As usual, it has happened before. Jules Labarbe in a very useful 1948 study
of "L'Homere de Platon" points out that the early and middle Platonic dialogues
use Homer in an oral form, including four extra lines of Iliad bk. 8 reported
nowhere else but in the Platonic Alcibiades II and conceivably improvised by
Plato in a Homeric way; whereas the late dialogues use Homer sparingly and in
exact quotation from MS representing much the same text the Alexandrians trans-
mitted to us. The relation of the teaching about oral poetry in, esp., the
Republic and Ion, to the practice of external memory Plato later developed,
would be interesting to pursue.
Owen Cramer
Colorado College