The Internet has revolutionized how — and how much — each of us can know. Our digital tools put the knowledge of the world at our fingertips — and soon, maybe, right into our heads. But what kinds of of knowledge do our devices give us, and how are they reshaping and challenging the role that education and libraries should play in our lives? This talk was delivered by Michael Patrick Lynch, professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, where he directs the university’s Humanities Institute.

1. Knowing More & Understanding Less
Michael P. Lynch
University of Connecticut

2. Knowledge is Power
KNOWLEDGE is ENERGY

3. A Crucial Truth
We can PRODUCE and CONSUME energy WISELY or
UNWISELY
Same for Knowledge

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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 1. Google-Knowing

8. Knowledge by digital interface

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 2. Long-term Worries

14. Desire isn’t truth

15. 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)

16. 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.

17. 3. Understanding & Deep
Knowledge

18. NEUROMEDIA again
So what’s the point of
education if we have
Neuromedia?

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. Connecting the dots

22. 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

23. 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

24. That’s what makes it important
 Active, not passive.
 Something you must do for yourself.
 I can’t outsource it.

25. Looking Forward
3

26. The Internet of Us
 Cognitive integration means our relationship with IT is more
and more intimate.
 And that brings both comfort and vulnerability.

27. 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.

28.  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

29. THANK YOU