I once had a philo teacher who said books are we have the closest to necromancy, because we can talk with the dead and exist after our physical departure. Do you agree with this metaphor ?
>>7672994
Talking with the dead assumes it's a dialogue, reading is not.
>>7673001
It's a dialogue if you react to it.
That's essentially what Leibniz did with Locke in New Essays much after Locke died
>>7672994
Its a curse, desu.
>>7672994
that aint no metaphor
>>7673023
Who is this downy?
>>7673015
No, it's a monologue with an audience.
>>7672994
I have an unfinished story about a vampire whose blood drinking habit allows him live through the most memorable memories of the person he sucks.
And in the end I'll have him starve dry because he discovered reading.
>>7673041
this. your teacher probably saw that on reddit and thought they'd be hot shit by telling it their class
>>7673071
That is the lamest fucking ending i've heard all my fucking life.
Language allows information to accumulate more and more rapidly as time passes. Due to language I can recieve signals from Confucious, Heracleitus, Plato, et cetera..
>>7672994
>>659808
>>664444
>>665633
>>665818
>Do you agree with this metaphor ?
Yes, but only *as* a metaphor. Seneca said something similar, that by reading books he got to converse with his dead heros.
But literally speaking, the authors don't actually exist via their writings; ideally, the author's text can allow the reader to think up for him/herself concepts that are indistinguishable from the concepts the author had when the author stamped those concepts in written words. But the concepts in the author's mind are not numerically identical with the concepts in the reader's mind - they're separate minds, and the author's concepts died along with the activity of his/her mind.
And most if not all of the time, the reader can't even be sure that he/she is interpreting the author in precisely the way the author meant to be interpreted - so the reader can't be sure that he/she is thinking of the concepts that would match exactly with the concepts the author was thinking while writing.
>>7673074
Lmao can someone be this retarded
I would say it's closer to paleontology than necromancy; through the reconstruction of an animal's physiology, you can create a conjecture of what it would act like--the same can be be applied to literature, as we can ask what Jesus or Socrates would do faced with a certain situation, from what we read about them.
>>7673244
This is a very good analogy!
>>7673143
yes
take a look: www.reddit.com
>>7672994
>>7673074
semantic argument
who gives a fuck
but then, who gives a fuck about necromancy either
This metaphor is like the "Books are just people reading ink and hallucinating" thing I saw on Facebook when it was viral.
Its essential right, but only in the shallowest sense possible.
>>7673752
Lol I hate reddit too xD
>>7672994
no. literature and books matter to liberals because it is how they spread their ideas. since the enlightenment.
>>7672994
I think that metaphor is retaraded
>>7674779
Sagan is a meme but was a smart man and not a bad influence. His successor Smoke Grass Mike Dyson-Sphere is a garbagebag
>>7674971
Ebin post xD
>>7674971
You know Sagan smoked weed?
>>7675538
Oddly relevant: I saw Sagan on a Johnny Carson re-reun last night and he said "Socrates speaks to us, we don't speak to Socrates."
>>7673124
but isn't a conversation, a physical, realistic conversation an imperfect method of communication, too?
>>7673244
You're thinking of anthropology there buddy
>>7672994
>>7673124
>>7675700
Sure - I don't see how we could ever know without question that we are thinking of the exact concepts that our conversation partner intends for us to think; we can never compare his/her concepts with our concepts side by side to check for exact similarity.
But of course OP's metaphor doesn't apply to a living, breathing conversation partner.
>>7672994
No. People are putting their ideas in the book when they read them. It's a communication in the sense that it is the thoughts of the person.
But you can't ask them how and why they wrote this here or there or what idea they had when they said this or that. So it's a half butchered one way communication.
