30 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
The Past and Who Has Access to It
What we know about the past—and who has access to such knowledge—has changed dramatically with each such change. The changes run far deeper than the mere proliferation of data points. As written records of large estates held in monasteries in France achieved legal and social dominance, the role of women as the tellers of the past fell into decline (Geary, 1994): The technological and the social were deeply intertwined. The outcome was that different kinds of records were kept. With the invent... 1 
notes
notesThe past was once only available through memory, then only available to those who had access to records, and now available to everyone.
23 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
How Technology Makes Us Smarter and More Uncertain
When I do long division or even multiplication I don’t try to remember the intermediate numbers. Long ago I learned to write them down. Because of paper and pencil I am “smarter” in arithmetic. In a similar manner I now no longer to try remember facts, or even where I found the facts. I have learned to summon them on the Internet. Because the Internet is my new pencil and paper, I am “smarter” in factuality.
But my knowledge is now more fragile. For every accepted piece of knowledge I find, ... 1 notes
notesThe Internet is a cognitive prosthesis, helping our brains to summon facts, but it also makes us more uncertain about the facts we take for granted, because there are challenges to what we know everywhere online.
