GoldenSwamp.com is about fishing knowledge out of the swamp that is the internet. I have devoted the past ten years of my life to finding and pointing to that knowledge, because I think engaging it is very important to the future of humankind. Much of the focus of educators in the internet era is on social networking — the interplay of people in the network. All of that is well and good, but that social spotlighting has caused knowledge suffer, in my opinion. (Yes, I know social aspects come into knowledge-building, but the knowledge produced become independent stuff now mostly findable in the internet swamp.)
Today I found a marvelous essay by Lera Boroditsky that is the best — and most interesting — explanation of the fundamental importance of knowledge that I have ever read. She wrote it in response to the Edge 2009 World Question: What Will Change Everything?
Boroditsky is Assistant Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Symbolic Systems, Stanford University. Her essay’s title is Knowledge About How We Know Will Change Everything. I recommend the whole piece, which concludes with this:
So why will knowing more about how we know change everything? Because everything in our world is based on knowledge. Humans, leaps and bounds beyond any other creatures, acquire, create, share, and pass on vast quantities of knowledge. All scientific advances, inventions, and discoveries are acts of knowledge creation. We owe civilization, culture, science, art, and technology all to our ability to acquire and create knowledge. When we study the mechanics of knowledge building, we are approaching an understanding of what it means to be human—the very nature of the human essence. Understanding the building blocks and the limitations of the normal human knowledge building mechanisms will allow us to get beyond them. And what lies beyond is, well, yet unknown…
