From Plato’s Pen to the Digital Realm: Socrates and the Enduring Dilemma of Writing

The Greek Philosopher Socrates never wrote a single sentence in his lifetime. What we know of him, his philosophy in particular, is derived from thirty-four of the thirty-five dialogues of Plato in which Socrates is one of the principal conversationalists. We don’t know if Plato wrote these dialogues after the famous philosophic martyrdom of his teacher so posterity would think highly of him or if Plato actually paraphrased into vibrant literature conversations that he happened to witness. Did Plato use Socrates as his mouthpiece for his views, or was he a faithful scribe to one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived? The jury is still out on this matter. No matter how that decision goes, It is through Plato’s beautifully crafted dialogues, some of the best prose ever written by a philosopher, that today we have the image of Socrates as an incessant questioner, as an intellectual who challenged everybody he conversed with for definitions, as a martyr who willingly chose death by drinking hemlock than compromise deeply held and felt convictions, as a public figure who cared little about how people perceived him, and, above all, the Socratic method itself, the great legacy of Socrates life, the art of getting down to the first principles of knowledge that made him so famous during his lifetime and also, tragically, led to his death. Socrates is still alive with us in spirit even today because Plato chose to write him down for us.

It is, however, one of the greatest ironies of history that a man who is known to the world through the writings of Plato was very skeptical about the invention of writing himself. In “Phaedrus,” a dialogue written around 370 BC, Plato recounts an episode of Socrates telling his friend Phaedrus about an Egyptian God, Theuth, who invented writing, among other inventions. Theuth decides to take his inventions to the King of Egypt, Thamus, and explain one invention after the other. The King acknowledges their merit. However, when Theuth brings up the invention of writing, the King pauses and responds in one of the finest passages of the dialogue. The King tells God: “(Writing) will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters who are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory but of reminding, and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will, therefore, seem to know many things when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with since they are not wise, but only appear wise”.

To Socrates, writing was second-hand knowledge. Depending upon writing induces a sense of forgetfulness, a loss of involvement, and a careless addiction to the written word without proper examination or understanding of it. He firmly believed that our commitment to internalize a fact or an idea diminished in proportion to our blind trust in the written word. He was worried that when we begin to take writing at its face value, we are likely to be swayed by every passing sentence we read. That, according to Socrates, is dangerous because it atrophies the instruments of thought – memory and critical thinking. In Plato’s words, Socrates tells Phaedrus: ” Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only the same thing. And every word, when once it is written, is bandied about, alike among those who understand and those who have no interest in it, and it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled, it always needs its father to help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself.”

If Socrates, who lived two-thousand-five hundred years ago, felt so deeply about the impact of writing from the few books available at his time, one wonders how he would respond to the unimaginable repository of text and information deluge of modern times. A rough back-of-the-envelope calculation, assuming 50000 characters per book, 300 pages long, if applied to roughly 500 quintillion characters of textual data on the Internet, would yield a staggering number of one quadrillion books ( one followed by fifteen zeroes). And not to mention the actual physical books available in millions. Under such circumstances, I suspect Socrates will refuse even to rise out of his grave. And I think he was right about the effects of writing. I own a library of hundreds of books and love the written word, but I can still see the point Socrates was making in Phaedrus. The written word can, in the hands of inattentive readers, become a substitute for actual thinking. That was Socrates’s principal objection. We see this happening all around us today in every sphere of human activity: In religion, politics, and economics, everywhere. We bandy words and terms without knowing what they mean, or worse still, we don’t care about what they mean. Since the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, the written word has taken a life of its own. The chasm between writing and reading, which the sudden proliferation of printing presses widened and exacerbated, led to a wave of intellectual laziness and false pride in man. Having easy access to the written word and its dry, uncooked, static knowledge became more fashionable than possessing true understanding that comes with diligent introspection and assimilation. The definition of a well-read man was transformed from someone who had deep wisdom to one who could regurgitate words without substance. The size of one’s library and the physical qualities of the books became the measure of wisdom. This was Socrates’s worry 2500 years ago.

The other thing that troubled Socrates about writing was its impact on the use of memory. I have to admit that this is true, especially so in today’s internet age. During his time, memory was a prized possession; only a few actively cultivated it, and most certainly, knowledge, culture, and customs were passed on orally from generation to generation. Very few had access to written material. That is the reason there are many gaps in knowledge during that time. Knowledge died with people who had it and did not commit them to writing. A good thing, perhaps! Who knows? Also, there was great pride in exercising one’s skill in memory. Great Greek orators like Demosthenes and Pericles could speak for hours without a note. There was a sophisticated art of cultivating memory and using it with skill. It is called “mnemonics” – a nearly dead skill these days. Mnemonics are memory aids or techniques that help individuals remember information more easily. Simonides of Ceos ( 556–468 BC), a Greek lyrical poet, is credited with the invention of a specific memory technique that laid the foundations for the art of mnemonics. The story of what led Simonides to invent this technique is perhaps apocryphal but remains a very famous anecdote in the history of memory.

Legend has it that Simonides was invited to attend a private banquet and was also commissioned to recite a poem in honor of the host. During the banquet, Simonides delivered his prepared ode to the host and, in addition to that, also recited a couple of verses to the twin Gods – Castor and Pollux. Shortly after, he received a message that two men were waiting outside the hall to meet him. When he went outside, there was nobody there. At the same time, the roof of the banquet hall collapsed, killing everyone inside. The bodies were terribly crushed beneath the weight of the roof. The families of the deceased had trouble recognizing which one of the bodies was their loved one. Simonides, however, was able to identify each guest by remembering the precise location where each one sat at the dinner table. Later, when he thought about this incident, it occurred to him that this tragic episode was a revelation on how to store and use memory. The skill of using clues, in this case, spatial clues, to improve memory. He called the technique “memory palace” to indicate that information can be stored and retrieved in an orderly manner if we can associate a chunk of information with specific spatial clues within a vast palace. For instance, if I have to store twelve names in a sequence, I can imagine a large hall with twelve ornate pillars holding it up, and then, under each pillar, store a specific name. When I have to retrieve these names, I can visualize the pillars in sequence, which will, in turn, retrieve the names stored under their custody. With this discovery, it is said Simonides birthed the art of mnemonics – or the study of memory aids. Francis Yates’s 1962 book “The Art of Memory” is a beautiful study of the art of memory across the ages. She unearths an interesting fact that the symbolisms, postures, and architectural choices of temples were original aids to memory. Even today, when we walk inside a temple, every idol, painting, pillar, or stone automatically evokes a specific prayer. They are aids to memory. The fundamental essence of art and architecture is to open up the treasures of stored memories – emotional and intellectual. This is a beautiful idea to ponder upon.

Before the invention of printing, books were a rarity. Memory cultivation was an essential part of one’s study, a part of the humanities – the study of things and ideas that make us human. Sadly, we don’t focus on it as much in modern times. We have drawn this blurry distinction between knowing and understanding, and we encourage students to use their brains to understand something and leave the knowing of facts to outside mediums. There is merit to this approach, considering the complexity, specialization, and vastness of the corpus of knowledge available today. As we said earlier, it makes it impossible for an individual to memorize everything. The point, however, is we have given up every effort to hold things in memory. The wide availability of books started the disuse of memory, and the Internet and mobile devices have exacerbated the condition to the point of no return.

I still like to memorize things. It gives me great pleasure to recollect facts from within. During my school days, I had a history teacher ( about whom I have written in an earlier essay) who inspired me in many ways but who, most importantly, taught me the joy of reading and recollecting from memory. He was a voracious reader himself, of course, and along it, he possessed a phenomenal memory of things he had read, seen, or heard. He would rattle out names of kings ( even complex tongue twisters), dynasties, and ideas from different domains without batting an eyelid and without any written notes in front of him, except a small piece of paper with key headings to aid his flow of thought. One day, I asked him how he retained so much information in his memory. He smiled and said, ” Balu ( he called me Balu), there are three things you have to do. One read slowly and carefully. Never hurry the sentences. Two, repeat a sentence or twice or thrice if it is something you want to memorize. Third point: recollect what you have read during the day before you go to sleep.” I continue this three-fold practice even today. These are the three best pieces of teaching advice anyone has ever given me.

It is beautiful to observe how the brain works in retrieving stored memories. There are times when you know that you know something, and it is there in some deep corner of your brain, but the details refuse to surface to consciousness. The specific item of memory eludes you; it is slippery, it plays games with your composure, and it teases you to focus more and try harder to pull it out. Nothing succeeds, and you relax and give up. And then, all of a sudden, minutes or hours or sometimes days later, the elusive details bubble up without any conscious volition on your part, and there it is, right in front of your mind’s eye with complete clarity and vividness. What mysterious process is this that works subconsciously, and where in the vast network of a hundred billion neurons or more is all this information stored, and how? Ultimately, everything has to be a chemical and/or electrical reaction within the brain. Science is still unraveling this mystery.

With AI (I don’t personally subscribe to this acronym, but use it because it is widely accepted) becoming more entrenched in our daily lives, the skepticism of Socrates, two thousand five years ago, has only magnified and exploded beyond just the written word. We now have systems that can generate text on the fly, unlike the static books that Socrates wasn’t happy about. Are we turning over our ability to speak, write, and articulate what we think and feel to an external agency? – Socrates would ask. Is this Human progress? After billions of years of evolution, do we now choose to relinquish the essence of who we are to a language model that we helped evolve? These are exciting questions, and we are still finding answers to them. Meanwhile, I encourage readers to read “Phaedrus”. It may be humbling to see that the fundamental questions of humankind haven’t changed over two millennia. We may think we have progressed, but the dialogue of Plato will echo the same concerns that we grapple with even today.