We have met the Devil of Information Overload and his impish underlings, the computer virus, the busy signal, the dead link, and the PowerPoint presentation.
James GleickRead
A good part of 'The Information' is about the transition from an oral to a literary culture. Books effected such a great transformation in the way we think about the world, our history, our logic, mathematics, you name it. I think we would be greatly diminished as a people and as a culture if the book became obsolete.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the profound impact of books on culture and thought.
James Gleick's quote underscores the significance of the transition from oral traditions to written literature, emphasizing how books have fundamentally altered our understanding of various aspects of life, including history, logic, and mathematics. He warns that the obsolescence of books would lead to a significant loss in cultural richness and intellectual depth for humanity.
Themes
BooksCultureLiteratureEducationKnowledgeOral Tradition
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on the importance of education, one might quote this to highlight the role of literature in shaping society.
More from James Gleick
All quotes →I'm trying to look at many, many things in modern life that I believe are going faster, and I'm trying to look at why they're going faster and what effect they have on us. We all know about FedEx and instant pudding, but it doesn't mean we've looked at all the consequences of our desire for speed.
James GleickRead
Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.
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Every time a new technology comes along, we feel we're about to break through to a place where we will not be able to recover. The advent of broadcast radio confused people. It delighted people, of course, but it also changed the world.
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"Half genius and half buffoon," Freeman Dyson ... wrote. ... [Richard] Feynman struck him as uproariously American-unbuttoned and burning with physical energy. It took him a while to realize how obsessively his new friend was tunneling into the very bedrock of modern science.
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We have a habit of turning to scientists when we want factual answers and artists when we want entertainment, but where are the facts about the nature of the self? Neurologists peering at PET scans and fMRIs know they aren't seeing the soul in there.
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