knowing where to look up the facts seems like a perfectly fine substitute for memorizing them I suspect that you might revise this statement if you applied the

knowing where to look up the facts seems like a perfectly fine substitute for memorizing them I suspect that you might revise this statement if you applied the simple metacognitive strategy of thinking about this as if you were a software system: if you put all of your facts on the other side of a high-latency lookup system — as you are suggesting — you limit the size your brain's base of associative firings. The work that one does to bring facts into the brain instead of leaving them in external storage allows those concepts to be quickly brought into the short-term "working memory" system where they can take part in cognitive activities. Eschewing practice and memorization limits the rate and scope of your thoughts. Worse yet, you won't know what you're missing. (This is the basic reason that Paul Graham's Blub programmer doesn't know what he's missing.)