Did The Automobile Dehumanize Walking? No? Then Does Google Dehumanize Intelligence?
from the no dept
Kevin sent over one of Nick Carr's latest ramblings, attacking Google and its VP Marissa Mayer for saying: "It's not what you know, it's what you can find out." That statement is a little too bland to actually catch on, but is hardly a new idea. In fact, we've argued that this is the case for many years. If you have regular access to a vast computer network that lets you find stuff, you can actually have your biological brain focus on more important things, rather than cramming it with things you can easily find out. In fact, with various studies suggesting the real key to intelligence is better forgetting rather than better remembering, you could argue that not having to remember certain things can be of great benefit.But not to Nick Carr, apparently. To him, this means that people are becoming "intellectually dehumanized." And this is a bad, bad thing:
Truth is self-created through labor, through the hard, inefficient, unscripted work of the mind, through the indirection of dream and reverie. What matters is what cannot be rendered as code. Google can give you everything but meaning.But this presupposes all sorts of incorrect things -- such as the idea that what information you don't store in your brain can't be used for sussing out meaning. It reminds me of the people who insisted, years ago, that calculators would destroy everyone's ability to do basic math, and that this would inevitably lead to the downfall of society. Sure, I may not totally remember my times tables, but being able to quickly use a calculator to figure out something isn't really a problem at all. And, much more importantly, it means that I can do much more complex mathematical calculations as well. The same is true of Google. Sure, we may not remember little bits of information here or there, but we can more easily bring together a much, much, much larger corpus of information, and synthesize that in a useful way in our brains. There is no rule that you should only use what's stored directly in your mind to think about things.
The calculator didn't dehumanize math. The automobile didn't dehumanize walking. And Google, most certainly, has not dehumanized intelligence. It's only enabled it to do much, much more.
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Filed Under: dehumanizing, nick carr, technology, tools
Companies: google
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Wait, taking paper to create books destroys trees and I think may even cost more energy than the electricity required to read something on the screen?
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However, in the case of searching for information, searching for information is not the same as learning information so yes, anything that makes us find information faster could very well help us learn information faster since it's less time searching and more time learning.
But you can't say that less time walking = more time exercising since walking = exercising.
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wow
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I can see a bit of a point
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Re: I can see a bit of a point
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Re: I can see a bit of a point
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Or, perhaps, did he dig out the Poirier book he remembered tucking away on his shelf? Did he - gasp - simply Google the quote he was looking for?
Did he find it convenient that Barnes & Noble supplied him with a link directly to a page of information about the book, where it can also be purchased? Or would he have preferred copy out the ISBN so readers can go find it in their local library? (maybe he has the ISBN memorized too? after all, looking it up in the liner notes would be rather un-human of him)
Of course, I suppose it's different if you're looking stuff up in books, right? After all, one would never find a critical analysis like Poirier's online. The only information available online is raw facts with no context or opinion - there are no influential voices, no intelligent observers providing commentary and opinion: just pure data, processable only by robots like Mayer. I just checked, and there is not a single critique of Robert Frost's poetry available anywhere online! I just searched "Richard Poirier" in Google and got zero results - that knowledge only exists in books and peoples' memories! Now I totally get Nick's point!
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I never understood times tables...
Good thing too, as I have a terrible memory. Now I find out that I don't need a memory. Yeah for me. :)
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cars suck
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http://www.planetizen.com/node/27721
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Re: cars suck
Nina, I really like your contributions here thus far, so I really, really, REALLY hope that was a failed attempt at satire. I'm cringing at the thought that yet another person will have revealed themselves as a mouthpiece for anti-auto nonsense.
The solution to cars reducing how much exercise we get is not to blame the car, but the person who drives it unnecessarily.
The solution to cars causing polution is not to ditch cars, but to make them such that they don't pollute.
Cars are wonderful things that allow many people to do many things they would otherwise be unable to do. There are many people on this Earth that do TOO much walking, and would kill for access to a car and the benefits it brings. Let's not let over-zealousness get a hold of us....
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A better quote from a smarter person
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A better quote from a smarter person
— Albert Einstein
Also, Nina, cars are just self-propelled wheeled vehicles. They are tools. They solve more problems than they cause, by themselves. It's what car manufacturers and society in general have made of cars which is so bad.
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This is nothing new.
I don't bother doing multi-digit math in my head anymore. I do the algebra needed to define the equations I need, then plug the numbers into the calculator. Similarly, I don't remember information anymore, I look it up. Online search engines mean I don't have to physically go to where the books are located in order to look up the information.
Every time there's been a new technology to assist the mind it has indeed caused some mental skill to atrophy. That's mostly because that skill is no longer needed. The mind is now free to do other things while the mechanical assistant takes on the routine drudgery that used to require a mind.
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Jeff
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Einstein
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I might agree that the things that matter cannot be rendered as code, but who said that Google was trying to be one of these profound things that matter? It's not trying to replace the important things in life, its trying to get you information very fast. That's all. It's a more efficient library. And some of these things in this library just happen to be profound texts that many humans feel can help you find that Truth. You still have to read and study them.
To deny Google is to deny written culture, since its only an expansion of that. If we want to have to painstakingly memorize all that is important then we should do it completely and return to an oral culture.
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dont movies make us lazy and tv
think of the children
omg hollywood is killing them and making them unhealthy
end the net now and get rid of all technology
like lets go back to copper tools and that way everything takes a LONG time ot make you will appreciate it more.
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real key to intelligence is better forgetting rather than better remembering
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Search engines are good, to a certain extent.
Even if you have a car, you do walk, you walk upto your bath or to your kitchen etc. With search engine, does your brain do that little "walking"?
Google is bad for THE OTHER reason, the way it tries to monopolize and "sells" personal data, luckily we have better and sane search engines like http://ixquick.com/
Out of topic but ONE search engine is bad, three or four equally competing are good. Why? The title of this topic could have been then "Did The Automobile Dehumanize Walking? No? Then Does SE Dehumanize Intelligence?"
Note : its *Automobile* Generic! but Google a TM ;/
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Truth is, or equally, it isn't. Truth is learnt or discovered. It is NOT created. The very idea is just laughable. Are there laboratories out there creating "truth"? If something is untrue can we create some "truth" to make it become true? IDIOTIC!!
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Somewhat true, if you think "truth" = "meaning"
Carr's basic premise is this: "A glut of information devalues meaning." In some sense, it's true. An example: In math class, you didn't just learn what the value of pi is, you were taught (at least one) method of figuring this out. Your average Joe will never know about these proofs, so he'll be less "knowledgeable" than a math major. The number pi will simply have less meaning to this Joe than to a math major.
Of course, if by "truth" you mean "factual," then his argument totally falls apart. Really, he's not complaining about the death of knowledge; he's complaining about the death of poetry.
But even here he's off the mark, for that Joe would never have learned that "meaning" anyway.
What I think is more truthful is Sturgeon's Revelation: 90% of everything is crud. This has always been true, but without artificial "information gatekeepers," that 90% is now out in the open for everyone to see, and it's a lot less convenient to wade through it.
But as time goes on, we become our own gatekeepers (or choose our own). Compare the internet today with the internet ten years ago (think: AOL). On average, which do you think has better writing?
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Postscript
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/mar/15/comment.media
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Ten years ago Internet was much better
There were plenty of chat rooms, plenty of email providers, and individual sites on geocities, tripod etc rather than cookie-cutter same-same looking blogs.
Social exchange, exchange of fun, and exchange of knowledge was no less. Websites did not belong to monopolistic giants but belonged to all.
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Re: Ten years ago Internet was much better
Sure, blogs today look very similar, but I think it beats the weird, crazy sites that only someone new to HTML could love (or read) and the availability of the look-alike sites means that even people who can't code a website can still take part in the social exchange, the exchange of fun, and the exchange of knowledge.
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Geocities or similar sites did not actually need html knowledge and even if they did there were as many sites as there are cookie-cutter blogs today. People who could not code were still there at that time and much independently rather than having to "expose" their data to large business merchants like Google.
"IRC and chat rooms instead of Twitter." - Wrong. It was not ONE IRC and chat room. There were innumerable and plenty of chat providers as compared to one or three major players now.
You said "it seems like your problem" - actually it is not my problem BUT the problem of the current gen that they/you do not understand how the monopoly is killing the variation and FREEDOM that net actually was. I only hope that the current trend dies by following laws of nature and the net that was returns.
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I believe that the Internet had a monopoly of giants that all of the others followed slavishly then, as well. (The name changes but the song's the same.) There are still innumerable chat providers, and you can hardly complain that having a few major players is a problem for everyone, when it's everyone's choice of whom to patronize.
People are still blogging today without exposing their information to Google, because Google offers just one of many blogging platforms. A Wordpress blog is just about the easiest thing in the world to throw up on your own piece of Internet, and it's cheaper than ever to have your own piece, meaning that many, many more people can take advantage of the Internet today.
In fact, that's where I think that you're mistaken. In the beginning, the Internet was full of a small portion of people, making it seem variable and fantastic. Now, everyone has the resources and know-how to use the Internet, and the resulting flood of sheep-like people is making the Internet look... Well. Sheep-like.
The Internet hasn't changed. The quality of Internet users has.
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Show me five sites 10 years ago that all and each had THE SAME Facebook and Twitter icons.
See? That is where you had the FREEDOM rather thanhaving to follow the iron-clad nonbreakable cookiecutter codes of today.
I was not speaking of blogs but how Google exposes your data. See these sites http://www.googlesux.com/, http://www.googlethis.net/ or read about this actual report - http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Has-Serious-Lapses-but-Still-Tops-Google-57117.shtml or this BBC report - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6740075.stm
Ten years ago, we had no one like you defending sites like Google or blissfully unaware of the slowly engulfing monopoly. You also need to a research on how many email or chat providers were there at that time but probably it is pointless. I will wait for the next gen with better sense of what is and what is not to come up by following the natural laws.
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The Half of Knowledge is Knowing Where To Find It
I took that message to heart as a freshman at FSU, but then waited three decades for search engines to make it easy and comprehensive.
In high school I lived near D.C. and had the pleasure of using the Library of Congress, which once had a room full of beautiful oak card cabinets in a majestic marble hall as the beginning of one's journey. My LCD and home aren't nearly the same, but Google et. al. are available to the world, not just those close enough to a major library.
Cite for the quote: http://ask.metafilter.com/63386/Who-said-this
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Enablement is only the beginning...
More at: http://moderndavinci.blogspot.com/2010/08/science-is-built-up-with-facts-as-house.html
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