No surprise he thought mere book-learning was inferior. "Real knowledge, Socrates said, can only be gathered via dialog: a give and take of questions and answe

No surprise he thought mere book-learning was inferior. "Real knowledge, Socrates said, can only be gathered via dialog: a give and take of questions and answers where ideas are interrogated until the knowledge is truly understood. But with a book, that cannot be done unless one has access to the author." What I have finally been able to articulate for myself is that education is not information, it is the effect of a relationship and practice. When you isolate information in the dynamic, it describes how ostensibly educated people can be starkly ignorant of facts, and how autodidacts aren't reliable no matter what truths they might be in possession of. The internet gives us unlimited information, with only some means to practice it if you code, and it simulates relationships that do not materially exist. It is making us stupid in a way we can't readily appreciate, which is perhaps what being stupid itself means. The perspective doesn't matter much other than to give some mental respite from the nonsense of echo chambers and social hall of mirrors most people seem to be preoccupied with, but then again, that is the comfort philosophy was meant to provide, so YMMV.