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Memorizing Knowledge

Tomes to Clicks

I've always been the General Knowledge guy in my circle of friends: What is the two main languages they speak in Belgium? Ask Kevin. What is the name of that first car Ford produced that made automobiles available to the masses? Ask Kevin. How about the latest iPhone, whose Core Processor technology is it built with? Kevin just read it on his Fortune Magazine, go ask him. Yahoo and Microsoft just launched some sort of attack on Google in the search engine industry, I thought Jerry Young never wanted to work with Microsoft - who's the CEO of Yahoo now? This sort of stuff are in Kevin's domain. Most of the time, for the stuff we need not know to get around in life and the little things that people don't bother googling, I am the oracle of truth.

The topics are not even standard, it can be technology, the media scene, business, movie plots, some showbiz stuff, song titles, artiste names, programming, economic systems, workings of certain biological mechanism or literature. And how on earth do I manage to know all that? Most of the time, I learn them online, on my wild Wikipedia trips in Secondary school days where I surf Wikipedia for entire afternoons, soaking up history, absorbing movie plots, understanding zeitgeist of different eras, making sense of philosophies of Enlightenment, learning about religious teachings and more. Others I might have managed to recall offhand from stuff I read: The Economist and Fortune Magazines, Literature works, News articles. Then there's things I merely observed, from life experiences (though a mere sub-20 years) and from all the television I've watched.

Learning or Browsing?

I was thus rather surprised by the claims of the discussion brought up by Brian Cathcart on moreIntelligentLife, Is Google Killing General Knowledge? To a great extent, I think whether Google (and the related technologies that makes knowledge more accessible to the layman) helps spread or end up killing General Knowledge is dependent on the attitudes of people using it. Nevertheless, I can't deny the argument of Brian in those foolish cases where people have become overly reliant on the Internet for knowledge. Facts and knowledge are important to help us get around in life even if they might appear trivia. My take is that you absorb whatever you come by if possible, whatever that interests you and whatever you purposeful search and discover and found useful.

I don't exactly have much respect for education systems that pour cold hard facts down the throats of their students without much effort to help the kids to understand - much like Confucian classics in ancient China where they're forced down the memory of scholars-to-be with the idea that the kids would one day understand the wisdoms. Of course it happens, but that's not education, that's learning through living, something that comes naturally as one matures and grow as long as one stays within civilization. Nevertheless, I value knowledge on its own and I believe strongly in the need to imbue in kids a curiosity and strong desire to learn that will kick start their development that extends long after they leave school. The schools nowadays are doing the right thing by equipping students with the skills necessary to acquire knowledge as information grows and evolve since facts and hard information quickly becomes obsolete but it is up to the students whether they want to truly 'learn' those knowledge they chance upon or have access to thanks to Google. If the accessibility of information means reduced 'learning' then Google is indeed killing General Knowledge.

The next time you Google something to make yourself look smart; make sure you learn the stuff and commit the knowledge to memory if possible so you really become more learned.