The depth of human knowledge is staggeringly profound.
Medical science gives us the ability to manage or cure diseases that used to be death sentences.
Information technology like radio, phone, and internet connect us across distance.
Political sciences help us theorize and construct collaborative efforts between and within groups of people.
Art and humanities create influence and change behaviors.
I would bet that the knowledge you have cultivated over time has deep meaning and application in the greater scope of "humanity." I don't know if there is knowledge too insignificant.
There is caution to be had, however, in the constant seeking of novelty that our brains engage in. I believe some of our technology has become a barrier to knowledge because it has cheapened the knowledge itself.
Knowledge is Costly
Have you ever wondered how we figured out how vaccines work? What about healing an infection, or safely moving an injured body without causing more harm, or any number of medical treatments?
The history of Western medical advancement is plagued (forgive the pun) with experimentation close to torture(1), brutality, classism, racism(2), and ethically questionable acts.
My point is not to demonize medical history—especially because it's not unique. Every field, every advancement, every body of knowledge shares the guilt of exploitation, racism, and ultimately suffering.
We may be separated from the costs of our knowledge. Past sins from distant people in time and geography. But the price was still paid, even if it was thousands of years ago.
I think we owe it to people who have paid the price for our knowledge to hold that knowledge with reverence and gratitude.
Just Google It
How often do you reach for your phone to do a quick search on something? How many times throughout the day are we using search engines to answer questions we can figure out ourselves given a few moments' thought?
The "Google Effect," is when people go to Google (insert any search engine here) as a source of knowledge—and they turn to it rather than just remembering something.
In a lot of ways, this isn't all that striking—much like an encyclopedia, we come to know a certain book has some knowledge and we would return to that encyclopedia when we need to extract that knowledge. At least, that's how we did it before the encyclopedia was indexed by Google ;)
This is also a reflection of the Personal Knowledge Management ([[PKM]]) systems we've talked about building in Obsidian or other platforms here on CYBORG_. PKM systems have been monumentally helpful to me, but they do come with costs.
A meta-analysis (a study of studies), "Google effects on memory," has some helpful hints to what's happening and provides some insight on the pros and cons:
"...when people anticipate future access to information, they have lower information memory rates and a better recall of where to obtain the information." (3, Google effects on memory)
Meaning when we know / plan that we can find that information in a specific place in the future, we tend to prefer to remember where to find it rather than remembering the information itself.
Whether it's your personal PKM system or Google or even another website, the lesson here is that this does impact our knowledge (and our perception of our own knowledge).
"Internet users...may believe that they are particularly adept at thinking and remembering information, despite the fact that the Internet is increasingly responsible for 'remembering' information." (3)
Ultimately, as long as we know this is happening—that we are choosing to offload knowledge to an external source—we are set up to be able to treat our knowledge with good judgment.
Is this piece of information worth spending some time with and committing it to real memory? Is it something I can be ok with losing if the external source goes away? Is it worth taking a moment to think through just because you can?
"...by examining the potential costs and limitations of the Internet, individuals are in a better position to develop and modify the technology so that it is potentially more productive, less disruptive, and more consistent with the everyday goals and functions of human cognition." (3)
Honor Your Knowledge
The longer it's been since college, the more precious the things I learned there have become to me. There was a period of time immediately after graduating that I resented my education, because I didn't feel like it was good enough; it wasn't applicable.
Now, I see that all of the knowledge gained was hard won and it has remained, at least in part, with me. And the parts that have decayed with time are things that I can go back to and refresh my knowledge—even update it with more current information.
Simply reading the scholarly article mentioned in the last section was an ignition of memories from my Psychology classes. Writing papers about experiments performed on a rat or observing people cross streets without a glance to check for cars.
There are discrete skills that I gained from the previous work I put in. I am not a psychologist—I'm not even a Graphic Designer (my actual degree)—but the knowledge somehow finds its way into my life, enriching it, clarifying it, and sometimes making it more difficult (it can't be all rainbows, right?).
The cost of knowledge is great. Don't let the ease of the Google search fool you.
Humanity's knowledge is a beautiful, terrible compound built on work and pain.
Next time you pull out your phone to do some calculations for a recipe (how much flour if it's a 1 1/2 batch?) or look up a word (define: exegesis) or try to figure out if your symptoms mean you have an ingrown hair or the bubonic plague...consider a pause to reflect how much knowledge is right there.
Discovery, records, reviews, updates, publishing all were phases that brought that knowledge to your thumb. How will you honor that?
Footnotes
(1) "[[Stiff - The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers|Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers]]," [[Mary Roach]] (2) "How Belgian Imperialism Gave Us The COVID Vaccine," Johnny Harris, YouTube (3) "Google effects on memory: a meta-analytical review of the media effects of intensive Internet search behavior", Chen Gong and Yang Yang, 2024