Philosophy & Poetry

[sMartins]

Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321)

[sMartins]

[sMartins]

[sMartins]

At the age of 37, I am, by now, firmly convinced that Philosophy does not mean love of wisdom, but rather wisdom of love.

Warm thanks to all who have followed so far.

Marco

[dagrimreefah]

Pretentiousness: The Thread

[sMartins]

Well, I could say the same about you, with the difference that I put some effort into trying to explain my thesis while you used a three-word sentence.

Language is deceptive by nature, and that is exactly what I have been trying to explain, what matters is not to understand but to feel.

[dagrimreefah]

Well, I could say the same about you, with the difference that I put some effort into trying to explain my thesis while you used a three-word sentence.

Language is deceptive by nature, and that is exactly what I have been trying to explain, what matters is not to understand but to feel.

lol you don't even know what the word pretentious means, sad!

[sMartins]

Maybe you should go back to The Last Human Being. Thank you.

<3

[Fille]

Poincaré Recurrence theorem as it relates to the human condition, discuss


[I am back]

[sMartins]

PREQUEL

THE ALPHABET

Looking at the front pages of today's newspapers, which I haven't seen, but I have no trouble imagining, there will be big pages devoted to the war, or some time ago to the covid, and they are in Rome as in Stockholm, Paris, New York and so on.

This type of relationship that we all have today with what is called information, that is the place that informs us of events that are presumed to be important, that we are all presumed to be touched by in some way, that makes it possible, being widespread, that we are touched by it, perhaps we do not wish it, we would not have chosen it, but immediately we are touched by it.
This situation that we all experience in some way is true that it was born in the roots of our culture, it was born in Greece, it was born particularly in Athens, it was born at the moment when the first universal form of information was spread, which was determined by the alphabet.
One thing needs to be said, which is usually overlooked, just as it is overlooked that the hoe has to be made to use the hoe.
Something that is almost never said in school, and now we are beginning to learn that it is important.
Nowadays, in school, it would be good to teach that the books we have in our bags, those tools of culture, did not come from heaven, nor have always existed, are not innocent, do not tell the truth but tell a truth or a figure of truth.
One thing that is not said in school or that is very often overlooked is that the alphabet is a Greek invention, in fact it is usually inaccurate and imperfect news when you give it and say that the alphabet is from the Phoenicians, it is not true.
Certainly the alphabet has a genealogy, an ancient history and comes from very far away, but the Phoenician alphabet, what we arbitrarily call the Phoenician alphabet certainly had an influence, but it was the Greeks who made this writing system a transcription of speech, cause it is one thing if I write with figurines, as was done in more ancient times, or use the system of Egyptian hieroglyphics or Chinese ideograms or the writing system that was used in Mesopotamia, which was a mixture of images and transcribed syllables, it's one thing if I use these more or less imaginative, iconic, figurative writings, if I draw the house and it means "house", writings that did not allow a universal reading, you had to be competent to read those writings, only very few read them and they were made for very few, they were not meant for everyone, they were a bit like the structure of today's high-level algebra that is good for mathematicians, for engineers, but none of us can decipher it, but that's not why we consider ourselves uncultured.

There have been cultures in which people could neither read nor write and this was absolutely normal, it was not a sign of a lack of culture, because writing was a specialised thing, for the few.
Well, the Greeks took the great leap, they built a tool, a tool of very high technology, the alphabet, which allows anyone to learn to read and write, as we all learnt at school, in a few months, at Christmas you already write your letters to your parents, in a few months.

Do you understand? It didn't exist before, it wasn't there. And that means that from that moment on, culture was a culture of readers and writers, but above all of readers of course.
From then on those who could neither read nor write were no longer cultured people, it took centuries and centuries for this to spread, but from then on we had an identification of truth with written truth.
The era was born, first of writing through incunabula and through ancient systems, then through manuscripts, then through books and then the printing press.
Today we are facing a huge revolution, that of the computer.
Thinking about how our entire culture is indebted to this technology, which is the alphabet, also helps us understand what is happening to us.