Continuing in my role as pointer...
Jan. 6th, 2004 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpThere's an interesting interview with Bruce Sterling at Reason magazine. One point that echoes some thoughts I've had:
This is the primary problem with the approach that says "All I really need to know to be an engineer is F = ma, because I can derive everything else from that equation." (I must confess this was my approach as an undergraduate.) Not to mention the devastation that might occur if, in the case Sterling cites, one's access to Google disappears owing either to natural disaster or the effective closure of the Internet due to a massive stake-out of IP claims.
There are parallels to Socrates' observation of how writing caused people to cease memorization.
For example, I came of working age at a time when slide rules were in common use in college; for me, the electronic calculator was a convenience. There wasn't anything I couldn't do on TI-99 that I couldn't do on a slipstick, that I couldn't do by hand if required. Today, some - if not most - public schools train kids in the use of calculators from the get-go, which leads me to believe that most such kids will find themselves at sea, arithmetically, if the calculator batteries give out.
Another example: I somehow ended up with some considerable skill at spelling, acquired at a time when the answer to "How is it spelled?" was "Look it up in the dictionary!" Today, when I use a spell checker with my word processor, it's a means of catching typographical errors and not a method for converting a stream of semirandom letters wholesale into actual English words.
If writing killed memorization, then the use of writing to access massive reference sources may well cause people to allow their powers of recall to atrophy to altogether residual levels, while preserving the illusion of literacy.
Cheers...
reason: I think there are some positive social changes happening as a result of this spontaneous database building and Web page building. There are more and more of us who reflexively look things up.I might add that it's positively fatal if you intend to creatively synthesize new concepts from old ones. If, for example, you lack the awareness of Fact No. 1 when confronted with Fact No. 2, you will not be able to make any connection between the two and derive Fact No. 3.
Sterling: There is a Google blindness. It’s a kind of common wisdom generator, but it’s not necessarily going to get you to the real story of what’s actually going on.
reason: As today’s children get older they’re internalizing Boolean search logic, and they actually do show some discrimination and drill down to the useful information.
Sterling: It is a form of literacy that’s really peculiar. Socrates used to talk about this: "The problem with writing is that no one memorizes the Iliad any more. You’ve got to just know all of it. And how can you call yourself an educated man if you cannot recite Book Three, not missing a single epithet?" He’s got a point there. ... It has a profound effect on literary composition. I’ve got Google up all the time. It gives you this veneer of command of the facts which you do not, in point of fact, have. It’s extremely useful for novelists but somewhat dangerous if you’re pretending to be a brain surgeon.
This is the primary problem with the approach that says "All I really need to know to be an engineer is F = ma, because I can derive everything else from that equation." (I must confess this was my approach as an undergraduate.) Not to mention the devastation that might occur if, in the case Sterling cites, one's access to Google disappears owing either to natural disaster or the effective closure of the Internet due to a massive stake-out of IP claims.
There are parallels to Socrates' observation of how writing caused people to cease memorization.
For example, I came of working age at a time when slide rules were in common use in college; for me, the electronic calculator was a convenience. There wasn't anything I couldn't do on TI-99 that I couldn't do on a slipstick, that I couldn't do by hand if required. Today, some - if not most - public schools train kids in the use of calculators from the get-go, which leads me to believe that most such kids will find themselves at sea, arithmetically, if the calculator batteries give out.
Another example: I somehow ended up with some considerable skill at spelling, acquired at a time when the answer to "How is it spelled?" was "Look it up in the dictionary!" Today, when I use a spell checker with my word processor, it's a means of catching typographical errors and not a method for converting a stream of semirandom letters wholesale into actual English words.
If writing killed memorization, then the use of writing to access massive reference sources may well cause people to allow their powers of recall to atrophy to altogether residual levels, while preserving the illusion of literacy.
Cheers...
