Counter-Factuals: Writing (and reading)

The history of paper is an important one when it comes to keeping records as it allowed people to pass down information in written form. The permanence of paper meant that facts are less able to be skewed (although definately open to interpretation, take any religious text for example). When records are passed down through stories or song, they will inevitably change. The game 'Chinese whispers' is a good example of this. Records could be kept by making markings on stone or wood i.e. ancient cave carvings, but these were not portable and would eventually get 'left behind'.

With paper in its many forms i.e. from animal skin and bamboo, people were able to keep records of things. Reading and writing could be a rare skill i.e. in England as recently as a century ago, so the readers and writers could change facts on the other hand.

'Paper' has been around since at least 1600BC in the Shang Dynasty where it took the form of strips of bamboo or bone. These were cumbersome and took a long time to mark. On the upside, the mark could last for a longer period of time and take far more damage than todays paper and pencil. The oldest known actual paper in the West is from the 11th Century, 'the Missal of Silos'.

The versatility of modern day pen and paper is the ability for it to contain literally any form of information. From statistics to recipes and even music can be written down i.e. 'Sheet Music'. We have hundreds of languages, although the differences between very similar languages have made it difficult to define.

What if all paper was made from rice? The highly water soluble and easily breakable material? What if it was made from a material that was bio-degradeable in air and only survived for a few months, days, or hours? Would we value this information more? Would we take more care to 'absorb' the information rather than just projecting it into paper.

Take memorising a phone number for example. If i can write it down, i wont attempt to memorise it for any length of time. If i knew that that paper might dissappear eventually, i would make more effort to commit it to memory....