[sabbatic13]

Socrates' ideas, or rather Plato's representations thereof, belong to a cultural context radically different from our own and have absolutely no relevance. Greece was undergoing a transition from orality to literacy at the time. It was also in the early stages of actual educational institutions. What the distribution of a few manuscripts in that context meant relates to nothing in our modern world.

Not to be a jerk about it, but the misuse of history is characteristic of very pernicious rhetoric.

[nightpool]

Wow chalk one up on "completely missing the point." Gone35 was drawing a comparison between the Greek's transition from orality to literacy and our transition from literacy to a more digital communication media.

[Retric]

Books are clearly worse in virtually every context than one on one dialog with the author.

The advantage of contact with people separated in space or time seem less meaningful at the time. But, venerating books over one on one contact is a huge mistake.

[jonahx]

> Books are clearly worse in virtually every context than one on one dialog with the author.

This is not the case with fiction or poetry, where what is communicated is often precisely what cannot be communicated socially or even explicitly. The experiences of both writing and reading are often in a different realm altogether than those of speaking and listening face to face -- one is not a watered down version of the other. They have different qualities.

And even in the case of scientific and mathematical exposition, where your statement is more often true, there are many exceptions. For example, I think of professors I've had who could write lucidly but were poor teachers, both in the classroom and in office hours. Either their social skills stood in the way of their communication, or their verbal skills were not as good as their written ones. They needed time and solitude to express their thoughts clearly.

[Retric]

People can recite books just fine, let alone poetry. Granted, it's something of a lost skill, but one on one interactions are not limited to dialogs even if they may enhance exposition.

So, you gain absolutely nothing by writing the spoken word down as a skilled orator can speak with a nuteral tone when desired but the written word can't add inflection.

[eru]

Sometimes deliberate ambiguity is part of the art. (Also, on a more practical level, books are better at random access.)

[judk]

> Books are clearly worse in virtually every context than one on one dialog with the author.

This is what Feynman himself wrote in the preface to the books under discussion.