Knowledge and its Development across the Ages
The thumb drive is called ZWIBook (pronounced zwee-book).
Or search the internet for the word zwibook
And let’s talk one-on-one about the cost of ZWIBook and ways to reduce its cost ($50) down to the cost of a thumb drive ($17 to $20), plus the human effort of populating the thumb drive with the free-as-in speech / free-as-in-beer content of ZWIBook
Here is a ranking of the top 100 books downloaded from gutenberg.org in the last 30 days as of yesterday (Monday, October 7, 2024). All these books (and nearly 70,000 more!) are included with ZWIBook:
Read this handout online (with hyperlinks) at bit.ly/tbc0zwibook00. Write your own notes in the blank space below.
For questions related to this handout, contact Tim “Sparky” Chambers, 719.357.7822
Convert to EB Garamond before printing. When presented on 10/8, the intro was exactly 500 words, a tribute to twooshes.
Let's go no farther back in the development of human knowledge than language. It is natural to imagine that practical knowledge related to basic survival was shared orally: how to make fire, what could be gathered and eaten, how to hunt, how to build shelters, how to make clothes, etc.
Imagine all the knowledge related to fire alone. It kept our ancestors warm, and we used it to cook our food. But can you build your own fire? I am an Eagle Scout, yet I confess that I have never made fire without, at the least, the help of matches.
Ancient hunting requires the exchange of knowledge about tools (nets, snares, spears, bows and arrows, blades, boomerangs, bolas, etc.), and how to use them.
Imagine all the knowledge related to tribal cultures: achievements worthy of emulation by patriarchs and matriarchs, and, probably, lessons learned from their mistakes and abject failures.
The invention of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt facilitated the preservation of knowledge.
The invention of papyrus and parchment provided durable writing surfaces. Knowledge was written in books in the form of scrolls. Then along came paper.
The Romans introduced the codex, making books more portable, easier to store, and less expensive to produce. Paper books were cheaper than parchment books, helping spread knowledge more economically. But the earliest books were still handwritten, not printed.
Kudos to the Tang Dynasty China for inventing block printing on paper around the year 700.
Books were collected in libraries, which then served as centers for knowledge dissemination.
In 1440 Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized the production of books with his world-changing movable type printing press. This technology allowed for rapid mass production of identical texts, making books more accessible and affordable for the general public. It profoundly accelerated the spread of knowledge. It transformed literacy and education.
Yes, the printing press transformed book knowledge. It also transformed shorter-form publishing. Martin Luther spread his 95 Theses as a printed pamphlet. Pamphlets kindled the American Revolution.
Now consider how communication has evolved to disseminate knowledge. Dash through communication innovations—the wired telegraph,[a][b][c][d] then wireless, then the telephone, then radio, then television, then dial-up internet, then the World Wide Web, then fast internet on desktop computers; and here we are today with portable notebook computers, tablets, and smartphones.
Today we rely on the internet to acquire knowledge. We download it to our devices on demand. ZWIBook is a prototype of the future of knowledge dissemination. Here is a digital library of nearly 70,000 books, pamphlets, and other published works. It’s been loaded on a memory stick for you from the Project Gutenberg website. Each item is numbered. Number 1 is The Declaration of Independence. My two-page handout lists the 100 most popular downloads—a tiny sample of the knowledge (non-fiction and fiction) that the library contains.
Here is my vision for the future: Replace the memory stick with computers, tablets, and smartphones pre-loaded with this growing collection. Since the day the original ZWIBook thumb drive was manufactured, the Gutenberg collection has grown by over five thousand. A larger memory stick is needed to hold them all!
Let’s hit some high points of knowledge up to the present day.
In Mesopotamia and Babylon there was cuneiform script and the creation of the first systematic star catalogs.
Egypt developed a sophisticated calendar, invented the plow, and built the pyramids.
In the Axial Age (800-200 BCE) philosophical and religious ideas emerged. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Greece; Confucius and Lao Tzu in China; Buddha in India; and the prophets of the Hebrew Bible in the Middle East. Then Jesus was born. Six hundred years after Christianity, Muhammad began spreading knowledge about Islam.
China pioneered knowledge about paper, silk, the maritime compass, the earliest printing press, and gunpowder.
Bouncing back to Greece in the Hellenistic period: Eratosthenes, Euclid, and Archimedes pioneered geography, mathematics, astronomy, and engineering knowledge.
After Greece, the Roman Empire expanded across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, spreading knowledge about law, architecture, and governance.
This document was inspired by the Socrates Café in Monument, Colorado. Join us at the Monument Library Tuesdays at 1:00pm.
Knowledge thread at Perplexity
Tsundoku
Read Comparison of old & new introductions
l1030a Based on template j.mp/tbch0719a by Sparky tbchambers@gmail.com
[a]See what I did here? Dots and dashes. Haha.
[b](from Brave browser) yup, I see
[c]_Marked as resolved_
[d]_Re-opened_