Thanks for the references Hannu.
China invented the first mechanical computers too, I think.
It's probably also worth noting that ancient Greece was where oral
technologies and the written word first joined forces in full. A lot of
people don't usually consider orality as a technology - I don't mean casual
converstaion, but the handing down of sacred knowledge by means of verse,
meter, music, rhyme, etc. By splitting orality from particular people in
orally oriented writing, thought was alienated, became an alien "thing"
that was written down. Thoth and the dragon's teeth.
I think the point at which the oral tradition of Greece mingled with the
methods of writing developed by the ancient Persians (the Greeks stuck a
few vowels in to adapt the consonantal script to their oral tradition) is
the point at which thought and knowledge became seriously alienated. This
is what marks Greece as significant to me. I think it's why it has remained
such a vivid force in the "West", wherever that is. I wonder why a
flat-earth concept (viz, the east-west divide) should remain so much a part
of our "enlightened" consciousness.
Phil
Phil Graham
p.graham@qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html
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