In historian Lisa Jardine's podcast, she recounts the history of information storing, keeping today's methods close for comparison. There are a few stark contrasts- one being the teams of scribes, barely keeping up with new knowledge versus the world wide web, a world where anyone can contribute and finding the right information in the sea of web pages is the issue. It is clear that we have overcome the problem of not being able to record everything for the trade-off of having whatever information we need so long as we know where to look. Google's estimated index of the web alone has reached upwards of billions of web pages alone. To have all of that information is surely powerful, but it brings with it an important consideration.
The human life is limited, to say the least. It is so in an unusually cruel fashion from time to time, and one may not go satisfied with the way they expected to go. I, for one, would like to learn as much as possible before I leave this world. In hope of some grand scheme or just gaining a leg up on the competition we gather information, as it is powerful ammo for our strongest weapon: our brain. But with such limited time and responsibilities this becomes impossible. A social life, research papers, and that perfect girl will guarantee that you won't ever know anything. That's just the way it is.
So what does that mean for us? It means that becoming the renaissance man is no longer possible. In fact, Leon Battista Alberti's statement has proved false, and we can definitely not "do all things if [we] will [them]." If we wish to succeed as a race, it is my opinion that we must all focus down rather than widen our reach. With this, however, comes the necessity of teamwork. Four masters as a team would outperform a well-rounded novice any day, and in this sense, the amount of information we can access (and by extent, Google) still does not make us stupid. Only more capable.
Kunder, Maurice de. "The size of the World Wide Web."WorldWideWebSize.com. Tilburg University, ILK Workgroup, 02/16/2012. Web. 16 Feb 2012. <http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/>.
"Renaissance man." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/497891/Renaissance-man>.
Hey i really like your post. I agree with what your saying about we need to learn as much as we can before we die. Do you ever think that there is too much information almost like there is an information saturation that we live in? How do you think life woulda been if we would have been born back in time when there was not as much information. I also like the fact that you have labels in your post.
ReplyDeleteI often become overwhelmed by the information that I am required to know in one semester and can not imagine all that I will learn in just four short years at Juniata.I like your idea of narrowing down your "search" for information and becoming an expert at something,then collaborating with others as a team.Your blog is very well written!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good point. We can't learn everything because it's just impossible. We must work in teams to deal with all of the information that is presented to us. This will be the only way that we can focus enough to attempt to do something with the information overload!
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