Immerse In The Logic And The Art Of Memory: The Quest For A Universal Language Narrated By Paolo Rossi Delivered In Digital Edition

book on the origins of the enlightenment via mnemotechnics going back to Aristotle, Cicero and the ars magna and combinatoria of Lull that strived for a "universal key", ie a universal language, best exemplified in Leibniz and continues to this day in computer programming my own addition, computer programming language and systems are not addressed in this work as it is a historical overview of a movement from classical times to Leibniz documenting a movement towards memory and logicviewed as inseparable cultivating a universal system of signsa "Universal Key" to all knowledge requiring mastery of mnemotechnics best arrived at in a universal language.
Thought of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and Esperanto a great deal towards the end, Engrossing stuff, to say the least, A brilliant translation of this classic account of the art of memory and the logic of linkage and combination, the two traditions deriving from the Classical world and the late medieval period, and becoming intertwined in theth Century.
From this intertwining emerged a new tradition, a grandiose project for an 'alphabet of the world' or 'Clavis Universalis', Translated with an Introduction by Stephen Clucas, The Ars Memoria was a medieval technique for memorization, One would imagine a structure that was intimately familiar, and in each corner or room, place an object that would bring to mind the thing to be memorized.
It was considered a type of magic, to be passed down as all magical lore was, in secret,
Rossi, however, finds connections between the Art and the combinatoric methods of Ramon Llull, the deductive logic of Aristotle, the scientific method of Bacon, the universal character of Leibniz and Wilkins, and the computatio of Hobbes.

In order to memorize something, we need to reduces it to its essentials, to find the symmetries and order underlying it, to find rules that will allow us to reconstruct it in our minds from the smallest amount of actual facts committed to memory possible.
In other words, to memorize something is to understand it, In the field of computer science, this identity between compression and understanding is made formal and exact in the field of data compression and algorithmic information theory.
Bacon had no patience for the magic of it, but thought that the principle of finding the hidden rules to make memorization easier was a useful tool for science.
An incredibly valuable book linking together the mystical vision of Ramon Llull and the foundation of the Enlightenment, The concept of a "tree of knowledge" which can be united as a single root is traced from a Catholic origin into its GnosticEnlightenment counterpart.
One astonishing fact for me is that this book came out in, yet it was reviewed anew when the English editions were released inand, as if people had never heard of it before in fact, Dame Francis Yates was perfectly familiar with it in.
This is starting to solidify my belief that research into the history of Western thought has not been continuously progressing up to the present day as recent books tend to claim, but actually hit a high mark betweenand.
Very interesting historical overview of the art of memory and the logical system in which it was thought to

be useful for producing a universal language.
This pursuit had an enormous influence on dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the direction of mathematics and science,

More fields should revive these methods in order to facilitate education and broad synthesis, I found this quite dry and difficult to get through lots and lots of names and dates, The underlying idea was interesting the relationship between the mnemonic arts and the attempts to find a unifying 'philosophical language' also timely, having just come across the idea in Quicksilver!, but I would have enjoyed more development of the idea, and fewer details on the historical writings.
That's probably just my personal perspective though, as a nonhistorian I find the ideas themselves more interesting than the details of who came up with them and how.
I also found the ending very abrupt rather than a wrapup or concluding remarks, the chapter just ended and that was it, Some summing up of what had been covered and its overall relevance, with perhaps some comments on any further work in the past four centuries, would have helped.
Librarian Note: There is than one author in the GoodReads database with this name, See sitelink this page for information, Filosofo e storico della scienza, Librarian Note: There is than one author in the GoodReads database with this name, See sitelink this page for information, Filosofo e storico della scienza, sitelink.