RFC: Radio And Pictures

[Leigh Wilmington]

<lurk mode off>

Dear all,

I'm afraid I have to agree with Tony Barry that it is the written word that is
the main form of communication that separates man from the beasts.  All this
talk regarding the other sences is nothing more than suplementary information
that any being can obtain.  What the written text has enabled us as humans to
do is to learn from our predecesors, and not have to go through the same
learning curve as they pioneered.

For example, an early definition of the difference between an ape and humans
was that the ape did not use tools in order to carry out his daily work, and 
it was only the human variety that could use its extended thinking power to 
invent such tools to ease its workload.  When a group of apes was found to be
using grass fronds to get ants out of an ant mound the whole theory had to be
re-thinked.

But it was only one group of apes that used this technique.  Why??  Because all
skills and knowledge was passed down from generation to generation by word of
mouth (grunt more likely ?) and by example.  This was also the case in the early
history of the human race, until some bright spark decided that it was all too
much to continually relay knowledge and decided to write it down.

And to this day written text is the main form of knowledge transfer.  Multi-
media is just a better (quicker) way to impart the information (a picture tells
a thousand words) but without the words over half of those thousand words will
be missed in the initial viewing of the picture.  And so now all you are doing
is only imparting less than half the knowledge.

Multimedia is a necessary step forward in the human races thirst for knowledge,
but it will always be built on a foundation of the written word.

Leigh Wilmington
Normal disclaimers apply

<lurk mode on>



Chris Nicholls wrote..
>Folks,
>
>Information is conveyed via ALL the sences. It is absurd to suggest that 
text is the only "real" way. After all what do you think Multimedia is all 
about???
>
>Chris Nicholls
>chrisn@softlaw.com.au
>nanabelles
>PO Box 772
>Canberra ACT 2602
>http://www.softlaw.com.au
>----------
>From: 	Tony Barry[SMTP:tony@info.anu.edu.au]
>Sent: 	Friday, 30 June 1995 9:17 AM
>To: 	link@charlotte.anu.edu.au
>Subject: 	Re: RFC: Radio And Pictures
>
>At 7:22 AM 30/6/95, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>>Isn't that a bit like saying that "real" transportation is in the form of
>>feet because there are so many of them compared to other means?  Aren't
>>moving and still images and sound, as well as scents and feelings of
>>touch just as "real" sources of information?  I would venture that
>>feeling the heat in the wall near the power point is much more important
>>information than reading about the housefire in the Australian the next
>>day. <grin>
>
>If you want to convey anything substantial about heat and what you can do
>with it eg the laws of themodynamics, entropy, enthalpy, Gibbs free energy
>etc, you need writing - words and mathematics.  I didn't say that anything
>other than writing was useless just that it is ancilliary.
>
>Tony
>
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Tony Barry                  URL:http://snazzy.anu.edu.au/People/TonyB.html
>Centre for Networked Information and Publishing & also
>Centre for Networked Access to Scholarly Information  fone  +61 6 249 4632
>Australian National University Library                phax  +61 6 279 8120
>Canberra  A.C.T. 0200, AUSTRALIA                      tony@info.anu.edu.au
>
>
>
Leigh Wilmington                              leigh@mailhost.dpie.gov.au
Senior Network Programmer
Information Management and Services Branch
Department of Primary Industries and Energy   (06) 272 4108
Canberra, Australia