You Ended Up Here

Around 370 BC Plato wrote at the end of the Phaedrus of his protagonist Socrates railing against writing as having become some kind of idol worship: So Socrates says unto Phaedrus Writing is strange in a way such like painting whereas the painters painting stands before us as if it were alive but if you ask of the painting it responds with a majesty of silence and thus it is so with the written word

whereas it seems to speaketh unto you as though with intelligence but ask of those words what it is they would say for you to go and learn today and what you would hear them say is the same today tomorrow yesterday forever and ever they speaketh one way So Socrates charges that writing paradoxically can only weaken the memory and that will only give rise to a mind forgetful. Socrates tells of this in his story from the Phaedrus and of the ancient Egyptian god Theuth inventor of letters and how the god and king Thamus responds to Theuth about his invention which:

"will make the people of Egypt wiser and improve their memories," Thamus then sayeth if men learn this "this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves." And around 3300 BC small clay artifacts known as tokens and described by scholars as the worlds first money were found in Susa, Mesopotamia now Iran and from that it is suggested that writing was first invented not to transcribe speech but as a mnemonic device,

a verbal mind memory and/or learning aid, to record quantities of animals (sheep, goats, cattle) or commodities (jars of olive oil). And from that came adaptation for language recording and once that arrived you ended up here.

copyright 2011 by Joseph Louis Vega from the upcoming collection Livin Like You Got Salvation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvdG3wMUEoE