I remember reading Plato’s Sophist and some other dialogues in Greek for a class in 2007, and how it opened a new vein into understanding him—the structure of the sentences, the wordplay, all of it impossible to capture 100% in translation. Even then I was unprepared going in for how differently the text would feel in Greek than English; now almost no one will learn that Plato is actually “like that.” Trying to render his work, or that of another author like Aristophanes, is a huge challenge but one that’s been sustained for centuries. So yeah it’s grim to think we could someday say “well, we’re done with Greek translations, here’s the optimized summary-translation you asked for.” It can never really be “finished” because there is no optimization or perfect rendition, there are always tradeoffs…time to stockpile Loeb editions heh
So glad you wrote about this. I'm a sort of academic outsider who tries to keep up my academic interests, but one thing I think a lot of people in academia don't realize is how hard it is to maintain the 'life of the mind' outside of an environment that cultivates and rewards such a life. Colleges love to brag about creating 'lifelong learners' but little attention is given to the conditions that might make such a life possible. I've found little ways here and there to do it, but often it feels more like damage control against intellectual decay rather than the sort of deep, sustained thinking that is really required.
I have had the same thought as you about summaries: is there really such a demand for summarization?
My neighbor works in biotech, and he says that loves to "feed 20 papers into ChatGPT and have it summarize them." Why not just read the 20 abstracts?
Or, whenver one of those "deep research" models came out, Sam Altman would crow about how it was "like having a PhD researcher working for you." There's clearly been no demand for PhD-holders to churn out arbitrary summaries of different topics, so why is an approximation of that all the rage now? Are people reading these 20-page AI-generated "reports?"
There is _millennia_ worth of literature in Latin -- including some works considered all time masterpieces of human history! I get that the Romans were the bad guys, but if you think that studying literature in its original language isn't valuable, I don't know what to tell you.
And yes, estimation is more important, but you can't skip straight to estimation without actually doing mental/mechanical math to some extent. Most people kick aside the mental/mechanical math and stick to the estimation, but it's still foundational.
I spent quite a few years on Latin in school, and we only got to the point of reading extracts from Gallic Wars and some fairly second-rate writers (Terence and Plautus) , so I’m jaundiced on that. Even a limited amount of Greek would have been much better.
Also I meant to mention that my mother did the kind of job you were mentioning, but her job description was “computer” (this was before machines did this work, obviously)
Superb essay. I think your "gutenberg elegies" are among the most important pieces you write; I always benefit from reading them.
“People said the same thing about the calculator!” It’s true—they did. And as far as I can tell, they were right"
This ties into a pet theory of mine, that a lot of dire warnings from the past were not *wrong*, it's just that we learned to live with them. Now in some cases we learned that they *actually were* ok—those who said "gay rights will lead to gay marriage" were right, it's just that that was *good*. But in other cases they weren't: if you read William James on the "Ph.D. Octopus", his warnings were basically right: it just turned out we could, or anyway do, live like that. It would be an interesting project for someone to go back and look at dire warnings, and see which were in fact true, and in which cases what they saw as bad we see as good, and in which cases they are simply losses we have adjusted to.
In my experience sessional teaching at a major Perth university, I was told I could not prescribe four or five textbooks as was the case for my studies in the 1960s and 70s. Only one textbook, and a course book containing excerpts from books or short journal articles. ‘They will need help reading those,’ I was told. This prediction was accurate. I required a major essay (5,000 words), which challenged many students, and I spent hours of class time teaching the basics of writing.
I share your grief. Some of it is nostalgia, like our practising mental math in spare moments in Primary School.
I was lucky enough to be taught Hebrew, Latin and NT Greek in addition to French and Italian, all of which were useful in graduate studies. But I worry with you that there will not be enough Theology scholars who can read the literature. What will happen to the gleaning of new insights?
"...It ruins every day of my life at least a little, simply to know this is going on..." if it is any consolation, however small, know that you are not alone in that daily jolt of ruination. I was talking with my wife this morning about how I feel like I'm in a grief process, except it keeps getting reset to Denial or Anger, never gets fully Kübler-Rossified. The scope and extent of so many concurrent degradations is hard to keep up with. Time spent grieving the loss of mass literacy is also time _not_ spent grieving the decay of N other load-bearing walls of western civilization. I do not have the time nor the energy to grieve this much, this quickly.
That may well be true, but it's kind of beside the point of this post.
True, fair enough.
I remember reading Plato’s Sophist and some other dialogues in Greek for a class in 2007, and how it opened a new vein into understanding him—the structure of the sentences, the wordplay, all of it impossible to capture 100% in translation. Even then I was unprepared going in for how differently the text would feel in Greek than English; now almost no one will learn that Plato is actually “like that.” Trying to render his work, or that of another author like Aristophanes, is a huge challenge but one that’s been sustained for centuries. So yeah it’s grim to think we could someday say “well, we’re done with Greek translations, here’s the optimized summary-translation you asked for.” It can never really be “finished” because there is no optimization or perfect rendition, there are always tradeoffs…time to stockpile Loeb editions heh
So glad you wrote about this. I'm a sort of academic outsider who tries to keep up my academic interests, but one thing I think a lot of people in academia don't realize is how hard it is to maintain the 'life of the mind' outside of an environment that cultivates and rewards such a life. Colleges love to brag about creating 'lifelong learners' but little attention is given to the conditions that might make such a life possible. I've found little ways here and there to do it, but often it feels more like damage control against intellectual decay rather than the sort of deep, sustained thinking that is really required.
https://diakena.substack.com/p/life-of-the-lonely-mind
I have had the same thought as you about summaries: is there really such a demand for summarization?
My neighbor works in biotech, and he says that loves to "feed 20 papers into ChatGPT and have it summarize them." Why not just read the 20 abstracts?
Or, whenver one of those "deep research" models came out, Sam Altman would crow about how it was "like having a PhD researcher working for you." There's clearly been no demand for PhD-holders to churn out arbitrary summaries of different topics, so why is an approximation of that all the rage now? Are people reading these 20-page AI-generated "reports?"
A couple of qualifications
1. Estimation skills more important than mental arithmetic. Ex $ 1 billion is about $2 for every US person or $0.15 for every person in the world
2. Considering Rome’s centuries of domination of much of the world, not much left to justify learning Latin
But central point is right
There is _millennia_ worth of literature in Latin -- including some works considered all time masterpieces of human history! I get that the Romans were the bad guys, but if you think that studying literature in its original language isn't valuable, I don't know what to tell you.
And yes, estimation is more important, but you can't skip straight to estimation without actually doing mental/mechanical math to some extent. Most people kick aside the mental/mechanical math and stick to the estimation, but it's still foundational.
I spent quite a few years on Latin in school, and we only got to the point of reading extracts from Gallic Wars and some fairly second-rate writers (Terence and Plautus) , so I’m jaundiced on that. Even a limited amount of Greek would have been much better.
Also I meant to mention that my mother did the kind of job you were mentioning, but her job description was “computer” (this was before machines did this work, obviously)
My mistake -- I've corrected it. I guess I had calculators on my mind!
Superb essay. I think your "gutenberg elegies" are among the most important pieces you write; I always benefit from reading them.
“People said the same thing about the calculator!” It’s true—they did. And as far as I can tell, they were right"
This ties into a pet theory of mine, that a lot of dire warnings from the past were not *wrong*, it's just that we learned to live with them. Now in some cases we learned that they *actually were* ok—those who said "gay rights will lead to gay marriage" were right, it's just that that was *good*. But in other cases they weren't: if you read William James on the "Ph.D. Octopus", his warnings were basically right: it just turned out we could, or anyway do, live like that. It would be an interesting project for someone to go back and look at dire warnings, and see which were in fact true, and in which cases what they saw as bad we see as good, and in which cases they are simply losses we have adjusted to.
In my experience sessional teaching at a major Perth university, I was told I could not prescribe four or five textbooks as was the case for my studies in the 1960s and 70s. Only one textbook, and a course book containing excerpts from books or short journal articles. ‘They will need help reading those,’ I was told. This prediction was accurate. I required a major essay (5,000 words), which challenged many students, and I spent hours of class time teaching the basics of writing.
I share your grief. Some of it is nostalgia, like our practising mental math in spare moments in Primary School.
I was lucky enough to be taught Hebrew, Latin and NT Greek in addition to French and Italian, all of which were useful in graduate studies. But I worry with you that there will not be enough Theology scholars who can read the literature. What will happen to the gleaning of new insights?
"...It ruins every day of my life at least a little, simply to know this is going on..." if it is any consolation, however small, know that you are not alone in that daily jolt of ruination. I was talking with my wife this morning about how I feel like I'm in a grief process, except it keeps getting reset to Denial or Anger, never gets fully Kübler-Rossified. The scope and extent of so many concurrent degradations is hard to keep up with. Time spent grieving the loss of mass literacy is also time _not_ spent grieving the decay of N other load-bearing walls of western civilization. I do not have the time nor the energy to grieve this much, this quickly.
They should make an AI bot that does our grieving for us so we can focus on other things.