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The lost world of physicality

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Re: The lost world of physicality

#91

Post by ilkandi »

lukev wrote: post #54
ctdonath wrote: post #46

"On the Kindle every book is Twilight." Struck me in church, standing there reading the Bible from an iPad, that the value of sacred texts may fade or alter, being indistinguishable from any other momentary array of pixels upon a slim universal reader. Being naturally physcial-focused, my toddler children may come to not grasp the "specialness" of some books - where I want them to learn value beyond bits and pixels.

But the specialness of any book is precisely related to its contents, not its physical manifestation. The Bible is thousands of years old, and yet even the oldest physical copies begin to crumble after a few hundred years. Teaching a reverence for physical objects is in a very real sense untruthful... the ideas they contain are what should (or ought) to matter.

I totally disagree. The immediate "specialness" of the hot coffeeshop barista is not her "spiritual manifestation". Part of the uniqueness is presentation. Size, shape, weight, age, smell...I'm talking about books... the roughness of the pages etc. Bookreaders reduce this to a lowest common denominator that limits sensory bandwidth and cheapens the experience.

Can a person have the same religious fervor with an ephemeral Bible/Koran etc on a Kindle, as they would for a leather bound, gold-edged King James Version with the red tassel bookmark? And the cutout pages that let you thumb to the right chapter? These things should only be tools because in the end we're all animals. And, trying to virtualize everything limits us to half of our birthright.

Re: The lost world of physicality

#92

Post by actf »

joshklein wrote: post #29

The OP would do well to read "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau or, perhaps more pointedly, read up on the teachings of Epicurus[1]. And, more generally, I highly recommend "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work" by Alain De Botton. And then there's the defining entry from 1960's philosophy, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Persig, which is precisely about the intersection between nature and technology. These…

I'd also highly recommend the book "Shopcraft as Soulcraft" by Matthew Crawford. It's certainly not a classic like "Walden" or "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and found it very applicable to this type of philosophical discussion.

Re: The lost world of physicality

#93

Post by moheeb »

ilkandi wrote: post #91
lukev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the specialness of any book is precisely related to its contents, not its physical manifestation. The Bible is thousands of years old, and yet even the oldest physical copies begin to crumble after a few hundred years. Teaching a reverence for physical objects is in a very real sense untruthful... the ideas they contain are what should (or ought) to matter.

I totally disagree. The immediate "specialness" of the hot coffeeshop barista is not her "spiritual manifestation". Part of the uniqueness is presentation. Size, shape, weight, age, smell...I'm talking about books... the roughness of the pages etc. Bookreaders reduce this to a lowest common denominator that limits sensory bandwidth and cheapens the experience. Can a person have the same religious fervor with an ephem…

You're getting into vinyl vs CD territory here. That argument never ends well.

Those that are truly into the music won't care about the medium.

Re: The lost world of physicality

#94

Post by epochwolf »

heynk wrote: post #69
glhaynes wrote: post #58

Fisking mode on, devils-advocate-to-some-extent option engaged. I think that the world of TV, computers, video games has caused us to lose our connection with the physical world. Add on top of that fear: fear of letting children play in the street, fear of chemistry sets, fear of ultraviolet light. This combination means that people (and especially the young) spend hours indoors away from the physical world immersed…

Thanks for pointing out some of the more anecdotal evidence from this article. I wish there was some data to compare things instead of it seeming like 'things were better in the good old days.' One thing that is for certain is that obesity is a huge problem for younger generations. Part of that may be from less physical activity, but it is also no doubt due to recent food innovations that taste better, are cheaper, a…

> Yes, kids these days text more than they talk on the phone

OT: What age range is this?

I'm 24 and the only texts I get are from CloudKick (server warnings) and Google Voice (voicemail transcripts).

Re: The lost world of physicality

#95

Post by lukev »

ilkandi wrote: post #91
lukev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the specialness of any book is precisely related to its contents, not its physical manifestation. The Bible is thousands of years old, and yet even the oldest physical copies begin to crumble after a few hundred years. Teaching a reverence for physical objects is in a very real sense untruthful... the ideas they contain are what should (or ought) to matter.

I totally disagree. The immediate "specialness" of the hot coffeeshop barista is not her "spiritual manifestation". Part of the uniqueness is presentation. Size, shape, weight, age, smell...I'm talking about books... the roughness of the pages etc. Bookreaders reduce this to a lowest common denominator that limits sensory bandwidth and cheapens the experience. Can a person have the same religious fervor with an ephem…

I don't disagree that a physical experience is nice, and I'm not even going to touch the "hot girl" point, since sex is one of the few things that is almost entirely physical.

But the physical experience of a book is completely orthogonal to the true nature of the book: that is, its content. I actually prefer physical books to e-texts, I like the experience better. But I don't delude myself that that's somehow more "true." I also like reading outdoors on a cool autumn day with the scent of woodsmoke in the air, but that's no more essential to a book than its physical medium.

The essence of a book is the thoughts contained therein, everything else is peripheral.

Re: The lost world of physicality

#96

Post by mathattack »

This isn't that new of a concept. Parents have been lamenting kids being lazy (and too much time in front of the computer, though that's not really being lazy!) since the start of time.

Relevant to this discussion is Silicon Valley Snake Oil by Cliff Stoll. http://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Snake-Oil-Thoughts-Information...

In 1996 he predates a lot of these ideas by 15 years. And he's gone from physicist-hacker to Klein Bottle (Mobius bottle?) Maker. http://www.kleinbottle.com/

Re: The lost world of physicality

#97

Post by true_religion »

epochwolf wrote: post #94
heynk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing out some of the more anecdotal evidence from this article. I wish there was some data to compare things instead of it seeming like 'things were better in the good old days.' One thing that is for certain is that obesity is a huge problem for younger generations. Part of that may be from less physical activity, but it is also no doubt due to recent food innovations that taste better, are cheaper, a…

> Yes, kids these days text more than they talk on the phone OT: What age range is this? I'm 24 and the only texts I get are from CloudKick (server warnings) and Google Voice (voicemail transcripts).

You're 24, in what way do you think your age group would be considered part of "kids".

Re: The lost world of physicality

#98

Post by patrocles »

boredguy8 wrote: post #61

This passage seems relevant as it points at the contours of what I take to be the underlying 'problem' that the OP hints at with the litany of questions. It's also an interesting background from which to approach the writings of people like Kurzweil. There is, it seems, a deep desire to escape our bodies. The drive is present in many religions and it is present in futurism of diverse sorts. Lastly, the final sentence…

Perhaps; the medical industry follows our collective choices.

Say we eat more and grow obese, industry then works hard on maintaining sclerotic, clogged arteries and other over-sizing-related sequelae. Or we choose to have unsafe sex, so we get better at treating STDs.

Ultimately, medical industry expands to support an ever-increasing number of human configurations. Financing this expansion aside, we are witnessing an evolution of the human form.

Nature doesn't provide an unchanging measure by which we can gauge our overall fitness. Luckily, the OP wishes to provide one for us.

Re: The lost world of physicality

#99

Post by wnight »

colanderman wrote: post #77
wnight wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But capability is the point of books. If you want a work of art buy a sculpture/etc. There's a huge undercurrent of people who romanticize books, I was asking where/why they came from.

The author answers your question in the article: "In the real world the physical book has a meaning of its own: it's the book your wife gave you as an anniversary present, it's the book your late father got part way through and you dare not remove the bookmark he left in place, it's the children's book read and read until the pages are torn and worn. These physical remnants augment the book with personal meaning."

Sure. You'd likely have as many sentimental books as you'd have sentimental tie-clips, rings, photos, favorite songs, etc. But why do some people romanticize nearly all books?

Re: The lost world of physicality

#100

Post by wnight »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #87
wnight wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But capability is the point of books. If you want a work of art buy a sculpture/etc. There's a huge undercurrent of people who romanticize books, I was asking where/why they came from.

I have a couple of books I bought at library book sales years ago that are over 100 years old. I enjoy them more for their possible history than for the actual stories. The penciled-in notes, the owner's names before they were donated, the library stamps, etc. All these things give the books a sense of being "things" in their own right, with their own history, and that gives me pleasure. Make sense?

Quite. I always wonder at the history behind left-over bookmarks, marginal notes, etc.

I'd be happy seeing a scan though. Happier actually because I could flip through other scans of other marginal notes in other copies of the same book, comparing handwriting by decade, seeing if the same things confuse or inspire multiple people, or whatever. Stuck on a dead tree it's going to get lost, scanned in and indexed it's data.

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