Why does man read, and why does man write?

Question

Just another philosophical.

Answer 1

Because he can. The human brain has developed far beyond that of any other animal on earth.

Interestingly, when whites encountered peoples who did not have writing systems, such as those in North and South America, the natives were shocked and amazed at the writing of whites. They saw it as telepathy and magic.

Say a group of white men in N America read a letter, or proclamation, or peace proposal, or whatever, from their king back in Europe. The Indians were all, "You mean to tell me that those words you're speaking are actually the words and thoughts of your KING, who is thousands of miles away??? WOW."

It would be like someone in America or Europe in the early 19th century, before telegraph and telephone, would be amazed at the fact that I am able to communicate with all of you folks on my computer (or by phone or what have you) , when some of you are indeed half way round the world.

Love, Jack.

Answer 2

I guess that you are asking in the context of why man does these things and other species seemingly don't. I use seemingly as a number of territorial animals will mark their territory using scents. In this way, communication is made saying "Keep out!"

With human beings, we are no less territorial, but our sense of smell, while very good at detecting odours, is not very good as distinguishing between two similar ones. However, we do have very good use of our sense of sight, and there is some aspect in the human brain that allows us to make distinctions between similar images with training.

It is with this basic property that we discovered that spoken language, which we developed first, could be represented by visual images. This lead to the development of writing systems, starting with literal images, then iconic images, to pictographs, to more abstract characters. We do this so we can post signs on our property saying "Keep out!" :-)

Well, that may be how it started, but we discovered other uses for reading and writing, such as conveying ideas and thoughts, to communicate with those far away (before the invention of the cell phone), to preserving histories of our species so we don't have to rely on people's possible erroneous memories. I think that's why man reads and writes, because there are just so many things that one can do with it, why wouldn't we make use of it.

Answer 3

Simply another method of communication that separates man from the animals.

Answer 4

To communicate with other members of the human race...man.

Answer 5

man reads to help his imagination grow, add up his knowledge and feed his curiosity... the hunger for knowing why, what, how, who, when, where, etc.... provided some addtional ideals to him and to help him find his philosophy, logic and ideals...

man writes to initiate these of what he thought and read into words so action can be done or help others to create this actions for him...

Answer 6

It gives us humans something to do and we like to communicate with each other

Answer 7

Cause he can, so therfore he does. He writes he reads he laughs he writes, he write he cries he reads and he writes...why!!! Because he went to school, but failed to graduate...

Answer 8

because we're sapient, and we like to show off.