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Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic

por Simon Winchester

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History. Nonfiction. HTML: From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes�??this is award winning writer Simon Winchester's brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds. With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing things�??no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization�??are we risking our ability to think? As we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness? Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores how humans have attained, stored, and disseminated knowledge. Examining such disciplines as education, journalism, encyclopedia creation, museum curation, photography, and broadcasting, he looks at a whole range of knowledge diffusion�??from the cuneiform writings of Babylon to the machine-made genius of artificial intelligence, by way of Gutenberg, Google, and Wikipedia to the huge Victorian assemblage of the Mundanaeum, the collection of everything ever known, currently stored in a damp basement in northern Belgium. Studded with strange and fascinating details, Knowing What We Know is a deep dive into learning and the human mind. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom? Does Rene Descartes's Cogito, ergo sum�??"I think therefore I am," the foundation for human knowledge widely accepted since the Enlightenment�??still hold? And what will the world be like if no one i… (más)

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Books are depositories of knowledge. Now Simon Winchester has written a book about knowledge itself, “Knowing What We Know” (2023).

How is knowledge gathered? How is it used? How is it conveyed to others? How is it stored? Winchester tackles all such questions and in so doing discusses everything from oral traditions to schools to the invention of moveable type to the Encyclopedia Brittanica to Wikipedia and Google. He writes about libraries and newspapers and universities, as well as about many great individuals down through the ages from all parts of the world, from Asia to Africa to Europe to America, who have advanced the cause of knowledge.

Yet knowledge has a dark side, and Winchester does not ignore it, devoting a few pages to propaganda, which either creates fake knowledge or emphasizes one side of a question while downplaying the other. In other words, he writes about such things as politics and advertising. Unfortunately Winchester sometimes turns political himself and tosses in his own propaganda.

The most disturbing part of his book comes near the end when he wonders if knowledge may be becoming obsolete. Because of calculators, we no longer need to know even basic math. Because we have GPS. we no longer need to know much about geography. In which direction does the sun set? We no longer need to know even that. Because of Wikipedia and Google and Siri, we no longer need to know much of anything. What does this mean for the future of mankind?

Winchester packs so much into this book that it seems hard to believe that it comes in under 400 pages. (

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hardlyhardy | Apr 24, 2024 |

Winchester’s books are always full of interesting information and anecdotes. I enjoyed this one, but not as much as the o.e.d one, or the one on Krakatoa.The breadth of the subject gave a lot of room for philosophizing.It felt like Winchester spent a lot of time trying to dissociate himself from “classically trained subjects of the Empire.”I also felt he went out of his way to show his contempt for religion, which felt very much like an effort to make sure he was presenting the right credentials. (

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cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |

vorefamily | Feb 22, 2024 |

This is a difficult book to summarize, since it ranges widely over the ways humans have stored and manipulated information in the centuries since the invention of writing. By the end of the text, Winchester has raised the question of what knowledge stored in the individual human mind will be worth when electronic storage removes most reasons for remembering facts, doing calculations, reading maps and navigation. The global positioning system, Wikipedia and the internet, and our contact lists do all these tasks now. He relates a story of a woman leaving her cell phone behind, getting lost, and being unable to help herself because she could not recall phone numbers and had no idea how to navigate without GPS. He considers how best to educate children, the rise of printing, the reporting and manipulation of news by newspapers and governments. Chat-GPT is of course mentioned, but at the time of this writing Winchester had only seen Chat-GPT 2, so he commented on flawed texts that have now been corrected in the later versions. His discussion of Google's page rank algorithms is very enlightening on how search relevance is decided, and he notes that Wikipedia so dominates information retrieval as to drive other data collections to extinction. In his last chapter, he tries to understand wisdom, discussing the decision to deploy the atomic bomb against Japan, and arguing for listening to aboriginal wisdom, citing the navigational skills of Polynesians in open water canoes. I think this lets down the otherwise intelligent commentary, being more of a politically progressive romance than a way forward (

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neurodrew | Jan 15, 2024 |

An interesting book on knowledge accumulation, dispersal and a look at a series on men Winchester sees as wise from ancient times to the near present. Not a single woman is featured except in a passing mention. The book starts in Mesopotamia (ancient) and ends with the author's belief that nuclear weapons are unwise. The book studies how knowledge has been accumulated and stored over the centuries.. There is a definite pro British bias in the men he features. I did learn a lot of answers for future Trivial Pursuit games. (

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muddyboy | Dec 24, 2023 |

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History. Nonfiction. HTML:

From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes�??this is award winning writer Simon Winchester's brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds.

With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing things�??no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization�??are we risking our ability to think? As we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness?

Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores how humans have attained, stored, and disseminated knowledge. Examining such disciplines as education, journalism, encyclopedia creation, museum curation, photography, and broadcasting, he looks at a whole range of knowledge diffusion�??from the cuneiform writings of Babylon to the machine-made genius of artificial intelligence, by way of Gutenberg, Google, and Wikipedia to the huge Victorian assemblage of the Mundanaeum, the collection of everything ever known, currently stored in a damp basement in northern Belgium.

Studded with strange and fascinating details, Knowing What We Know is a deep dive into learning and the human mind. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom? Does Rene Descartes's Cogito, ergo sum�??"I think therefore I am," the foundation for human knowledge widely accepted since the Enlightenment�??still hold?

And what will the world be like if no one i

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