Knowing More & Understanding Less

Michael P. Lynch

University of Connecticut

Knowledge is Power

KNOWLEDGE is ENERGY

A Crucial Truth

We can PRODUCE and CONSUME energy WISELY or UNWISELY

Same for Knowledge

NEUROMEDIA

Convenience can make us over-value some ways of knowing at the expense of others.

On its way

When you think about something and don't really know much about it, you will automatically get information…. Eventually you'll have an implant, where if you think about a fact, it will just tell you the answer”

Google CEO, Larry Page

The Internet of Us

The most striking fact about our use of information technology is that it has become part of our form of life and as a result, has already changed how we know.

1. Google-Knowing

Knowledge by digital interface

Google-knowing: perception and reality

Our devices allow us know in ways that seem familiar: like asking experts or a personal assistant to look It up for you.

But the reality of Google-knowing is more complex.

1. Preference dependent

What we learn via digital interface is typically the result of OUTSOURCING our effort to collaborative or networked platforms.

Platforms DESIGNED to be immediately sensitive to, and affected by, preferences and biases—yours AND other people’s.

In other words, our digital devices work by predicting what you want.

2. Cognitively Integrated

We rely on Google-knowing as a matter of course. We give it default trust—Googling is believing. Seamless

In these respects, Google-knowing is like perception.

Out of the box

Knowledge by digital interface doesn’t fit in the normal boxes.

It is both cognitively integrated and outsourced. That’s what makes it so useful in the short-term. It is also what can lead to troubles in the long-term.

2. Long-term Worries

Desire isn’t truth

Bias-confirmation

We tend to believe what already fits our biases. Which leads to information bubbles and social media

echo chambers. Which (partly) explains why it is a super vehicle for

propaganda and manipulation. (See: Trump, Donald)

Overconfidence

Increased amounts of information and ease of access increases (over)confidence.

That leads to the Dunning-Kruger effect: illusions of superiority. The less we know the more we think we do.

3. Understanding & Deep Knowledge

NEUROMEDIA again

So what’s the point of education if we have Neuromedia?

Critical Thinking

People with integrated devices need to be able to: Tell the difference between good sources and bad; Appreciate evidence

Educational institutions help to refine these skills.

Deep Knowledge

But educational institution’s real value lies in their aim: to produce a different kind of epistemic energy, a different kind of knowledge.

Connecting the dots

Understanding as a complex form of knowing

Recognizing why or how something is the case. Grasping: “how things hang together” A chief aim of scientific modeling and investigation

Understanding as a creative act

A mental act is creative for a person to the extent that it generates, for that person, ideas that are contextually Novel Valuable Surprising

That’s what makes it important

Active, not passive. Something you must do for yourself. I can’t outsource it.

Looking Forward3

The Internet of Us

Cognitive integration means our relationship with IT is more and more intimate.

And that brings both comfort and vulnerability.

3 lessons

We must be careful about what sort of epistemic energy—what sort of knowledge—we are producing.

Networked Google-knowing is powerful but over-valuing it can be limiting and driven by bias.

We must tailor our educational technology to produce deep knowledge—acts of understanding.

In the past, the things that men could do were very limited . . . But with every increase in knowledge, there has been an increase in what men could achieve. In our scientific world, and presumably still more in the more scientific world of the not distant future, bad men can do more harm, and good men can do more good, than had seemed possible to our ancestors even in their wildest dreams. 

 

—Bertrand Russell

THANK YOU