Umberto Eco on Paper vs. Electronic Memory

joabj writes "Paper was itself a technology at one point, this essay from Umberto Eco, author of "In The Name of the Rose," reminds us. Eco holds forth on the differences between paper and electronic memory. He doesn't come out in favor of either, rather he talks about the advantages each has, in technical terms. Some fascinating ideas here...."

Comments

And don't forget the alphabet

[heironymouscoward]

John Gray, author of Straw Dogs, one of the best books you could read this year, suggests that the Latin alphabet, with its complete abstraction from physical objects, has been the basis of western philosophical models, mainly to the detriment of our view of the world. He suggests that Chinese iconography, in contrast, helped the establishment of a worldview in which humans played less of a central role.

Paper, the way we describe our world, the way we describe ourselves... the impact on the way we think can be enormous.

As for "technology", everything we make has been radical new technology at some point. People are so impressed that chip prices fall every 18 months. But this applies to all technological products when you're climbing the S curve.

Domesday

[Space cowboy]

I think the best example is probably the domesday book and the domesday project.

A thousand years ago (more or less) the Domesday book recorded a snapshot of life in England (and Wales I think ,but I think the scots gave'em the finger :-), it's still available today.

20 (or so) years ago, the domesday project did the same thing - recorded to a laserdisk, and intended to be a resource of all things at that time. For the time, it was pretty fantastic - schools up and down the country took part, videos were made, maps, testaments from people of all walks of life.

There is now a project to try and resurrect the domesday project, because no technology available can read it. The book (though written in latin) is still perfectly legible. Which is the better technology ?

Paper every time, apart from when you're searching :-)

Simon.

Printing out e-mails is good

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell?

You actually trust electronic media to store stuff that may be crucial if you ever end up in court? I've lost dozens of important e-mails because a) I've deleted them accidentally because I thought they were spam, b) the company server had a total meltdown and the backup policy does not include e-mail that's more than a year old and c) the backup cd-r disc had turned unreadable while stored in its jewel box in a dark drawer.

You don't print out your e-mails? Eugh.

Re:Paper Electronics (for many things anyhow)

[mikerich]

Some of da Vinci's works may be lost to time.

The best estimate is that at least 75% of Leonardo's writings have been destroyed or lost since his lifetime. Most of the surviving codices are actually rebindings of his work which have been salvaged from elsewhere.

Then there is the problem that Leonardo hardly ever finished anything - he loved procrastinating work, so its hard to know if some works attributed to his pupils are actually overpaintings of Leonardo's work. he hardly ever signed anything, so a good number of paintings (and some sculptures) are suspected of being Leonardo's work, but it can't be proven.

And he kept experimenting - most famously in the case of The Last Supper in Milan. Leonardo wanted to paint with oils for their intense colouration, but did not want to use the traditional fresco technique of applying paint to wet plaster (Leonardo rarely worked for a long period of time - so the plaster would have dried before he completed the work).

So he invented an oil-based paint that could be applied to dried plaster. And it looked magnificent - contemporaries were in awe of the work - for a few years, but Leonardo's formulation did not bind to the plaster and the paint began to crumble from the plaster. The painting was then restored a number of times - quite crudely, which made a big difference to the work.

So if you are in Milan, go and see The Last Supper - it is a work of extraordinary beauty and power (and size), but it is a faint shadow of the original.

Leonardo also lost a lot of work thanks to his choice of patrons, most notably Ludovico Sforza, tyrant of Milan between 1480 and 1499. Ludovico hired Leonardo ostensibly to create a massive 8m high statue of a horse to commemorate Frederico Sforza, the dynasty's founder.

Well Leonardo being Leonardo, he didn't work terribly quickly and got side-tracked, spending much of his time producing the majority of his known paintings, designing fortifications for Milan, a giant crossbow and starting his obsession with geology.

In 1499, the French invaded Lombardy to settle their claim for the dukedom of Milan. Sforza lost the battle and fled - Leonardo took his opportunity to leave as well.

What he didn't take was the full-sized model of his horse. The clay model was destroyed by Gascon bowmen and reduced to rubble. In recent years, an American team have created a pair of monumental bronze horses inspired by the original. One is in Michigan, the other in Milan - I saw the latter one this summer - and in a word - WOW!

And just think, this is Leonardo da Vinci we are talking about, what has been lost from less-well-known artists? What about the collected works of the Library of Alexandria, the libraries of the Caliphate of Baghdad, Rome...?

Best wishes,
Mike.

Hugo the Seer

[randmairs]

Eco synthesized from Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris: "The book will distract people from their most important values, encouraging unnecessary information, free interpretation of the Scriptures, insane curiosity."

Hugo forsaw porn, spam, cults, and Slashdot!!!

I hope you have an enjoyable Thanskgiving.

Re:Paper Electronics (for many things anyhow)

[Greedo]

FYI, a very good read on the problem with microfiche storage is Nicholson Baker's book Double Fold.

From the publisher:

Since the 1950's, our country's greatest libraries have, as a matter of common practice, dismantled their collections of original bound newspapers and so-called brittle books, replacing them with microfilmed copies. The marketing of the brittle-paper crisis and the real motives behind it are the subject of this passionately argued book, in which Nicholson Barker pleads the case for saving our recorded heritage in its original form while telling the story of how and why our greatest research libraries betrayed the public trust by auctioning off or pulping irreplaceable collections. The players include the Library of Congress, the CIA, NASA, microfilm lobbyists, newspaper dealers, and a colorful array of librarians and digital futurists, as well as Baker himself -- who eventually discovers that the only way to save one important newspaper is to buy it. Double Fold is an intense, brilliantly worded narrative that is sure to provoke discussion and controversy.

Re:Paper Electronics (for many things anyhow)

[STrinity]

Paper is better than electronic for long term storage.

That's arguably true provided you have a printing press. Anyone who's studied medieval and classical literature knows that paper is a horrible medium when data has to be copied manually -- most things written more than a thousand years ago don't exist today, either through war, disaster, or lack of interest, and those that do survive, have been bowdlerized.

Some years ago

[value_added]

I disconnected my telephone answering machine and removed the call-waiting feature. My rationale (at least what I told friends, family and co-workers) was that if I was home, I'd be happy to take their call. If I wasn't, there was no point calling me as I wasn't available to take their call. Over time, the complaints subsided (along with most of the telephone calls) and I resigned myself to a happy, albeit "quaint" and "old-fashioned" lifestyle. My life at that time was such that it afforded me this luxuriously relaxed approach to the outside world with few adverse effects -- picture Sean Connery (without the brogue) in "Finding Forrester" and you've got the idea. There were, however, certain individuals and family members who could neither comprehend nor accept my new "selfishness," and while their comments did prick my conscience from time to time, I refused to consider abandoning my new stance.

Now to be honest, I did find myself scratching my head on occasion trying to fashion a novel come-back to counter such objections, or provide an analogy by way of example but came up with little. Several months passed and I sat down one evening to read the new issue of Harper's Magazine and came across an article on Umberto Eco. I don't remember much about the article, except that it was well written, interesting, and concerned itself with (what else?) Umberto Eco. What I do remember, however, was the way in which Mr. Eco characterised himself as having no use for email and expressing a strong dislike of telephones. He advised anyone who was inclined to contact him to send a hand written note or letter addressed simply c/o the University of Bologna, the idea being that "it would eventually find its way" to him in due time.

Reading his words made me laugh (the funniest jokes are always the most personal, it seems) and I realized that even if I didn't live in southern Italy, my refusal to use an answering machine was perfectly justified. If Umberto Eco didn't answer his telephone, I didn't need to either. It was everyone else that had the problem. And if someone really really needed to contact me, they could similarly write a letter.

Things change for all of us, it seems.

--
value_added
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