should be heard and not seen.  Typically in antiquity, literature was received as a kind of performance, like music, drama and dance: one person read aloud, before a more or less intimate, more or less large gathering of listeners.

To a large extent that had to do with the fact that books were rather rare and expensive items, and it could not be expected that in many places more than a single copy of most works was available.  But more importantly, it had to do with the understanding that literature is a treasure of the commonwealth, a valuable part of one's community's cultural heritage.

Christians of Late Antiquity, the ancestors of the various modern Oriental, Orthodox and Catholic churches, naturally preserved this sense and function of literature.  Hence, liturgical services regularly include "lessons," readings aloud by a single reader to a congregation of listeners.  And in monastic houses in the Benedictine tradition, and perhaps among others too, it is the regular practice for the religious to take their meals together, themselves keeping silence, but listening to one of their number reading aloud from a book selected for everyone's edification by the community's superior -- an early example of BioD's literary multitasking.

But it was also those early Christians who established the modern practice of retreating singly and privately with a book, and reading in silence, for some personal benefit.  Saint Augustine of Hippo recounts in his Confessions how startled he was when he, as a young teacher of oratory, well educated in the classics, went to visit the elderly bishop of Milan, Ambrose, in order to ask him questions about Catholicism, and discovered him in his study alone with a book, reading silently, without even moving his lips!

So the prevailing modern sense of "reading," i.e. our normal, typical experience of literature, as a vision-based, silent encounter of the mind of the secluded reader with the words of an author written on a page, was known already in Late Antiquity.  But that was not by any means the only way in which "reading" took place.  Even into the modern period, as late as the 19th century, and perhaps here and there the 20th, it was common for families and friends to entertain one another by listening to works of literature as they were read aloud.

As for BioD's audio book experiment: Leave it to BioD, that valiant engineer, to characterize eyes and ears as "data input ports."  But probably the Borg came up with the idea first.

Three quibbles:

Your brain, BioD, does not precisely have "two main data input ports," your eyes and ears.  If you actually look like what we can glimpse of you in that e-bike video of yours, i.e. a slender young man all of whose parts are apparently present and working (and with a pleasant tenor voice with a slight midwestern twang, which would be well suited to singing soft bluegrass; but I digress), then you in fact have FOUR main data input ports.  Only they are paired, each pair operating in a more or less single-minded way.  So yes, it amounts to "two data input ports," but that is imprecise.  (Another digression: I believe that only chameleons, among vertebrates, have independently operating eyes.  But I could be wrong.  Certainly the radical asymmetry of flounders and kin, including the migration of one eye of the young fish up and over the skull to the other side, is remarkable.)

Anything auditory that is recorded and/or transmitted should be considered "data," not just spoken words.  Music is data, though a valiant, left-hemisphere-based engineer might not be comfortable thinking of music like that.

The partisans of noses and tongues will surely be very displeased to be told once again that their kinds of sensual input are not "major."

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

By the way, BioD, are these errors of yours in connexion with Socrates, which I just noticed, typical of what happens when we listen to a book instead of reading it?: Socrates was tried and put to death in 399 BCE, NOT 470; the confrontation between Spartans and Persians at Thermopylae, followed by the Persian destruction of Athens, took place in 480 BCE, NOT 460; there was one and only one Great King of the Eastern Mediterranean coastlands and the Middle East all the way to India and Central Asia, including Egypt and Syria, viz. the King of Persia.

But you got the basic gist about Socrates' predicament, and how he dealt with it, so far as his relationship with Athenian democracy goes.  The Phaedo, which takes place on the day that Socrates drinks the hemlock and dies, was written by Plato a good bit later than the Apology, and contains some much more developed thinking about metaphysics, about philosophy as a quasi-religious way of life, and about how death is not to be feared.  It is the favorite dialogue of many fans of Plato.  I hope you were paying attention to that at least.

Thanks to your admirably honest offer of these mini-book-reports, we can see that listening to books being read while we are occupied as well in other matters is not always the most efficient form of data retrieval.

Fortunately, most of us are not forced to take quizzes to test our comprehension of what we have read, or claim to have read; so I guess it does not really matter, most of the time, if all sorts of details go by unnoticed, or get mangled, when we listen to books being read.  The most successful kind of experience, having to do with listening to books being read, that I have heard of, happens during long-distance motor trips, on interstates or other uncomplicated roads.  In that case, one very much wants to listen attentively to the book, as a relief from the relative boredom of the road.

Nevertheless, I would welcome the opportunity to use audiobooks more often, since I am a slow reader, who ponders and daydreams a lot.  Also, hearing some classic such as Plato being read is an approximation to the way those books were originally appreciated.  But I would not want to multitask; I would want to listen attentively, with no distractions, and be able to pause and consult a written text if I do not understand something that was spoken.

Ideally, what with e-books and audiobooks evolving, and the backward and inhumane laws concerning exclusive intellectual property hopefully tumbling down, this is an exciting age which may lessen our dependence on books made from killed trees.  Nevertheless, it remains a very important consideration that true books have been with us for a long time, and remain the greatest information storage device ever invented, and, most important, require no power to access.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

The internet a hopefull sign as revolutionary as the printing press?  We'll see.

Franklin and socrates, we need them now.

Yes indeed, slavery is alive and well in most  nations of this world.  Disguised as prison labor or illegal immigrant labor (the sugar slaves of florida for instance, payed in crack by the Fanta brothers).

But the best deal for corporate citizens looking for cheap labor is not slavery.  Slaves have some value on the open market and are thus kept alive.  Low wage laborers are expendable, plenty are available, so employers don't need to provide a living for them.  Maybe it ought to be called a "dying"?

Hmmm, no audio books while biking?  Maybe trail running or skiing or biking?  Usually one would rather hear the woods in those circumstances.

I still don't even own an mp3 player for music, yow.  That must be a nightmare to operate as well. Isn't it strange how almost no manufacturers actually care if users can make their products work?  Is apple different, that is what I've heard, but what about all the problems with the i-pod?

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