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I hate this fact. Not because the internet is in peril of going down, or because it's not convenient (of course it is) - but because we're confusing access to i
by elliottkember 14y ago
I hate this fact. Not because the internet is in peril of going down, or because it's not convenient (of course it is) - but because we're confusing access to information with knowledge.
Access to information will tell you a number, or an answer, or even give you an amount of text about something. But knowledge lets you understand the bigger picture - how something came to be, or why.
At some point we become the needle on the gramophone, rather than the record. All we can say is what we've heard or read. It's the opposite of thinking, and it makes me worry.
- jedbrown 14y agoTrivia is not useful knowledge in today's world. The most important thing is problem formulation. Once you have figured out the right question to ask, answering it is usually easy.
- Wingman4l7 14y agoThis is why I'm so fascinated with Vernor Vinge's "wearables" future, and why I think parts of it are such an accurate representation of the near future. For instance, high schools have classes called "Search and Analysis" -- basically advanced Googling & result interpretation. People have recognized that the ability to formulate the proper query is almost as important as being able to understand the results. Check out his short story Fast Times At Fairmont High[1] and the short Synthetic Serendipity[2]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collected_Stories_of_Vernor_Vinge#Fast_Times_at_Fairmont_High http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collected_Stories_of_Vernor... [2]: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/synthetic-serendipity http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/synthetic-serend...