We can look up everything - so why learn anything?
You can read any
book in any language. All the words can be found online. There
are dozens – no hundreds and thousands, of translation
machines and dictionaries. The grammar rules can be looked up and
applied.
You shouldn't encounter
any problems reading any book in any language - everything you need
is online.
Now, we realize that
isn't true. Yet, it's the same case for other domains of knowledge.
But then we say "Why should I learn this? I can Google it!"
Knowledge is of
practical use. That's why.
Take looking up a
definition. Having a solid base gives you two important abilities:
1) You know where to
look
2) You can understand
the explanation
Why Google Is Insufficient
Let me give you two examples from when
I was studying botany. I had to know what cellulose was precisely. So
I went to Wikipedia.
"Cellulose is an
organic compound with the formula (C6H10O5)n, a polysaccharide
consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand
β(1→4) linked D-glucose units."
So I decided to ignore
cellulose and read on in my syllabus. But then I encountered this:
"Hemicellusoses
are heteropolymeres: after hydrolyses they appear to be composed of
hexoses (glucose, galactose, mannose), pentoses (xylose, arabinose)
and uron acids (glucuron acid and galacturon acid)."
Woaaaaaa. Wait a
minute. I kinda understand some of the words.
Hemithingies
are heterothingies and heterothingies are composed of
things like hexoses? So if I look up the hexose thingies, I'd
understand what the rest means, right? ...right?
So I googled "hexose".
Again, Wikipedia:
"In organic
chemistry, a hexose is a monosaccharide with six carbon atoms, having
the chemical formula C6H12O6. Hexoses are classified by functional
group, with aldohexoses having an aldehyde at position 1, and
ketohexoses having a ketone at position 2."
No. No, no, no.
That isn't helping me at all.
What did I have to do?
I could look up every word in every definition I encountered till it
all made sense somehow... Heck, I have a final coming up right here,
I don't have time, goddammit!
The problem was: I
lacked knowledge. I did not have enough of a background in biochemistry to
start on this part of botany. Which meant I was fucked, since I had
that final lurking around the corner.
If I had enough
knowledge, I would at least understand the explanation of things I
had to look up. Secondly, there'd be a whole lot less I'd have to
look up in the first place!
Cellulose versus Music
There are a few ways to
go about this: do you know the album title? Then you can just check
the track list. You could also look up the artist's name. If it's one
of his popular songs the answer pops up directly. If not, you can
sift through his discography.
If you know a few lines
from the lyrics, it gets easy. Put those in a search engine and the song
lyrics page will turn up, complete with artist and title.
Those
are all bits of knowledge.
You memorized the album
title, the artist's name, part of the lyrics... and use that to get
to the desired piece of information.
If you don't know any
of the above, what are you going to do? You could hum the melody for
a friend and hope they recognize it.
Them recognizing it,
means they have the required knowledge...
Knowledge and Internet
I believe that the
internet makes it easier to 1) puzzle pieces of knowledge together 2)
look up the missing pieces.
But once you memorize
bits and parts of it, your limits expand. Basically, the more you
know, the more you can look up.
You can always put
knowledge to use - from writing a paper to telling funny anecdotes on
a party (hey, did you know there's a disease that disables your automatic breathing?).
The more you know, the
better.
So when you are
reading/watching fun stuff online, why not remember some of it? I'm
sure falling cats can teach you something about physics.
In short, the internet is a great, amazing, fabulous resource. And
the greater you are, the greater the internet is for you. Makes
sense?
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