7 ms·

The easy access of facts on line is a good thing. This kind of “knowledge” is shallow, assembling the parts together to synthesize new knowledge is the importan

The easy access of facts on line is a good thing. This kind of “knowledge” is shallow, assembling the parts together to synthesize new knowledge is the important step. That part isn’t easily found online. This reminds me of leaning math. At one point “doing math” meant calculating numbers, like memorizing multiplication tables or performing long division. I was always relieved when the teacher said we could use a calculator on a test. But at some point I came to realize that math is not calculating. Math is about relationships between numbers and their general properties. Googling facts is akin to using a calculator. Extracting meaning from that jumbled pile of facts is knowledge.

pfortuny 5y ago
Memory is the basis of any real knowledge. This we have known since for ever… Intelligent people tend to think that you do not need to memorize because everything is out there at a button-press distance. But they do not realize that what makes the intelligent is that they can memorize lots of things without effort.
- cgriswald 5y ago
  > But they do not realize that what makes the intelligent is that they can memorize lots of things without effort. I play board games with my friends. We all know all the rules of the game, although we took varying amount of times to memorize these rules. Yet some of us come to dominate the game play. To the degree that there is correlation between the speed with which someone learns the rules and the percentage of time they win the game, I do not believe there is causation. How could there be? One would have to believe that once everyone has all the knowledge in the system, those who memorized that knowledge faster still have an edge because they memorized the knowledge faster. That's difficult to believe.
  - dougabug 5y ago
    It’s not just memorization of the rules, in a game like Go that would only be a tiny fraction of the memory utilized. Remembering large numbers of examples assists in recognizing patterns and developing strategies.
    - cgriswald 5y ago
      That doesn’t really resolve the underlying problem. Given the same set of examples, the guy who memorized them faster isn’t necessarily the guy who wins. There is more going on than just “effortless memory.”
      - dougabug 5y ago
        Presumably, human memory involves a significant associative aspect. If you couldn’t recall a relevant fact within a useful time frame, this might impact comprehension or the ability to make connections. Imagine trying to read a book, while only have a vocabulary of a few hundred words, or lacking the ability to remember more than the last few sentences. There are also fidelity issues. Suppose half of the facts or ideas you recalled were corrupted, or most of your retrieved memories were misassociated or irrelevant?
        cgriswald 5y ago
        Sure, but I’m not disputing the necessity of a useful memory. I’m disputing its sufficiency.
        dougabug 5y ago
        Saying that something is foundational doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s sufficient, or that it’s exclusive of other foundational properties.
        cgriswald 5y ago
        I think we're having two different conversations.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
Yeah. There are serious epistemological problems to go with externalized knowledge. Knowledge isn't just the ability to produce true statements, it isn't knowing what things are or what things will be, it's knowing why things are and why things will be. If I keep guessing coinflips, I don't have knowledge of the answer 50% of the time even though I can predict them that often. Knowledge has an aspect of understanding why things are, not just that they are, and that aspect becomes incredibly weak with the "look up facts on wikipedia"-model of external knowledge. The JTB-model of knowledge is probably incomplete, but it's arguably less wrong than a model that doesn't contain justification.
- pphysch 5y ago
  The JTB model is wrong or at least misleading. Definitely outdated. Our best modern models for both biological and artificial intelligence indicate that concepts or knowledge* emerges from networks of sensation/facts/data. * Specifically referring to "system 1" cognition, which is what the article is ostensibly targeting.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    Well the JTB was the standing model for some 2300 years, so even though there are a few corner cases it doesn't quite cover (Gettier etc), those are corner cases indeed. It doesn't invalidate JTB any more than Einstein invalidated Newtonian physics. The question is what we mean when we say knowledge. I don't think modelling is a good way of answering that question. Of course there is going to be a connection between perception and knowledge, how else would the knowledge enter us? But David Hume could have told you that.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      Knowledge doesn't "enter" us, that's the point. It's an emergent property of (many, many) memorized & networked sensations, which do enter us through our various sensory organs. It is virtually impossible to teach an abstract concept like "cup" without a) providing real, sensory examples of what you mean by "cup" or b) relating to analogous concepts that the student has already learned through personal experience (like "bowl" with "handle") and is capable of communicating.
nice_byte 5y ago
To offer a counterpoint, doing a basic calculation in your head is faster than reaching for a calculator - remembering 7*3=21 is faster than punching it in on a keypad. It's the same with facts -- having some fact committed to your own local memory is much faster than searching a global computer network for it every time. For somputer systems, the speed at which data can be accessed has a transformative effect on the algorithms that deal with it. I think this is the case for humans as well.
- ducharmdev 5y ago
  The caveat here, of course, being that memory limitations require us to prioritize what information should be kept in memory vs in storage. Take LRU caches for example: it doesn't do us much good to devote that valuable memory space to information that isn't being recalled very often.
mistermann 5y ago
> Googling facts is akin to using a calculator. An important distinction is that calculators tend not to lie or make honest mistakes when producing facts.

pfortuny 5y ago

Memory is the basis of any real knowledge. This we have known since for ever… Intelligent people tend to think that you do not need to memorize because everything is out there at a button-press distance. But they do not realize that what makes the intelligent is that they can memorize lots of things without effort.

cgriswald 5y ago
> But they do not realize that what makes the intelligent is that they can memorize lots of things without effort. I play board games with my friends. We all know all the rules of the game, although we took varying amount of times to memorize these rules. Yet some of us come to dominate the game play. To the degree that there is correlation between the speed with which someone learns the rules and the percentage of time they win the game, I do not believe there is causation. How could there be? One would have to believe that once everyone has all the knowledge in the system, those who memorized that knowledge faster still have an edge because they memorized the knowledge faster. That's difficult to believe.
- dougabug 5y ago
  It’s not just memorization of the rules, in a game like Go that would only be a tiny fraction of the memory utilized. Remembering large numbers of examples assists in recognizing patterns and developing strategies.
  - cgriswald 5y ago
    That doesn’t really resolve the underlying problem. Given the same set of examples, the guy who memorized them faster isn’t necessarily the guy who wins. There is more going on than just “effortless memory.”
    - dougabug 5y ago
      Presumably, human memory involves a significant associative aspect. If you couldn’t recall a relevant fact within a useful time frame, this might impact comprehension or the ability to make connections. Imagine trying to read a book, while only have a vocabulary of a few hundred words, or lacking the ability to remember more than the last few sentences. There are also fidelity issues. Suppose half of the facts or ideas you recalled were corrupted, or most of your retrieved memories were misassociated or irrelevant?
      - cgriswald 5y ago
        Sure, but I’m not disputing the necessity of a useful memory. I’m disputing its sufficiency.
        dougabug 5y ago
        Saying that something is foundational doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s sufficient, or that it’s exclusive of other foundational properties.
        cgriswald 5y ago
        I think we're having two different conversations.

marginalia_nu 5y ago

Yeah. There are serious epistemological problems to go with externalized knowledge. Knowledge isn't just the ability to produce true statements, it isn't knowing what things are or what things will be, it's knowing why things are and why things will be. If I keep guessing coinflips, I don't have knowledge of the answer 50% of the time even though I can predict them that often. Knowledge has an aspect of understanding why things are, not just that they are, and that aspect becomes incredibly weak with the "look up facts on wikipedia"-model of external knowledge. The JTB-model of knowledge is probably incomplete, but it's arguably less wrong than a model that doesn't contain justification.

pphysch 5y ago
The JTB model is wrong or at least misleading. Definitely outdated. Our best modern models for both biological and artificial intelligence indicate that concepts or knowledge* emerges from networks of sensation/facts/data. * Specifically referring to "system 1" cognition, which is what the article is ostensibly targeting.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Well the JTB was the standing model for some 2300 years, so even though there are a few corner cases it doesn't quite cover (Gettier etc), those are corner cases indeed. It doesn't invalidate JTB any more than Einstein invalidated Newtonian physics. The question is what we mean when we say knowledge. I don't think modelling is a good way of answering that question. Of course there is going to be a connection between perception and knowledge, how else would the knowledge enter us? But David Hume could have told you that.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    Knowledge doesn't "enter" us, that's the point. It's an emergent property of (many, many) memorized & networked sensations, which do enter us through our various sensory organs. It is virtually impossible to teach an abstract concept like "cup" without a) providing real, sensory examples of what you mean by "cup" or b) relating to analogous concepts that the student has already learned through personal experience (like "bowl" with "handle") and is capable of communicating.

nice_byte 5y ago

To offer a counterpoint, doing a basic calculation in your head is faster than reaching for a calculator - remembering 7*3=21 is faster than punching it in on a keypad. It's the same with facts -- having some fact committed to your own local memory is much faster than searching a global computer network for it every time. For somputer systems, the speed at which data can be accessed has a transformative effect on the algorithms that deal with it. I think this is the case for humans as well.

ducharmdev 5y ago
The caveat here, of course, being that memory limitations require us to prioritize what information should be kept in memory vs in storage. Take LRU caches for example: it doesn't do us much good to devote that valuable memory space to information that isn't being recalled very often.

mistermann 5y ago

> Googling facts is akin to using a calculator. An important distinction is that calculators tend not to lie or make honest mistakes when producing facts.