If I read something and then recall that information in a later debate, Plato’s argument is derailed, as I would produce the opposite of forgetfulness (and make my debate less based on personal assumption and egoistic criteria).

If I friend someone on Facebook, then arrange an event with them, and we further cement our relationship at that event, the argument of the second emphasized passage is derailed, as I would have produced the opposite of disconnection (while having produced a permanent reminder of the event for us both).

Writing and Facebook are supports, rather than sieves.

==

Fantastic thought exercise.

How can you bring yourself to assert that I am not a fan of the written word when I am among the most prolific writers in all of antiquity?! And that quote which you attribute to me? It was not I who spoke it, good sir, but rather it was Socrates… Socrates, who, you may know, was put to death for the words he spoke!

Upon witnessing his fate, I concluded that I must keep my own thoughts close to my breast. Thus, instead of writing discourses, I wrote dramas. As such, one should not approach me as one approaches Aristotle, but rather as one approaches Shakespeare.

With regard to the aforementioned quote, Socrates made this comment to Phaedrus, a bright handsome young man with a flair for rhetoric, who had just come from listening to a speech by the great sophist Lysias… Lysias, who is most famous for a legal defense he wrote in which a man who murdered his wife’s lover claims that the laws of Athens required him to do it!

Socrates made this comment to Phaedrus outside of the walls of Athens and in an effort to get him to think about the differences between sophistry and philosophy and how each manifests itself within the walls of the city.

To understand this quote, one must also understand the dramatic setting in which it was made and bare witness to the entire discussion, not just pull one quote out of it in isolation. Socrates did not speak, not did I write, in soundbites.

This quote come from “Phaedrus”, a dialogue which focuses on the topics of love and rhetoric. For more on these topics see “Symposium” (love) and “Gorgias” (rhetoric).

This quote pertains specifically to the topic of memory, which relates closely to the topic of “recollection”, which relates closely to the topic of reincarnation. For more on these topics see “Meno”… which is the dialogue that I recommend you read first if you desire to butt heads with Platonic Scholars.

Take up my challenge to delve deeply into my work, as Socrates took up the challenge of the oracle to discover whether he was the wisest man in the world, and I guarantee that you will benefit with an increased ability to think more deeply about your own philosophical contemplations… including those related to technology, memory, relationships, and communication. Then again, as a result of a mere superficial brush with my work, you already are thinking more deeply about such things, aren’t you?

Oh yeah… Did I mention that I wrote?… lots.

Thanks for the food for thought. And posting.

-Alex

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W8K9SMI9Fk&feature=player_embedded