Journal 4

In chapter 4 of Borgman’s Holding on to Reality, he discusses how our memory was our primary source of organization before writing. According to Borgman, “if all ledgers, accounts, files, calendars, memos, letters, scores, plans, maps, data bases, and other records should suddenly disappear so would the order and coherence of our society.” Borgman refers our intelligence back to its original state of oral language. He explains how before writing, we passed everything on orally and although writing is very useful, it is merely an abstraction of spoken language. I assume that Borgman is worried that we no longer commit information to memory and instead simply remember where to find it. This is true in many cases, but only because the mind has a finite capacity. I believe that we still use our memory as they did back then where they bear witness and store information at its natural state. However, with the abundance of information that surely Borgman would agree exists in modern times, we must find alternatives in some cases to put our minds at ease rather than overflow it with information. So yes, in modern times we would have a very difficult time functioning without accounts, files, calendars, memos, etc. In this day and age, so much is expected of a single person that you must use these devices as an “extension of yourself,” as Dreyfus would put I, to be able to store all of the appropriate information in today’s world.