In retirement and with plenty of time at my disposal, I now suffer from the wide-eyed condition once described by the Australian poet Les Murray as "I am only interested in everything", which is why I prefer reading non-fiction books, and there's no better non-fiction writer than British-American author Simon Winchester.
His book, "Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic", is all about knowledge and 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.
Throughout his book, 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 in it is wise?
This new book by Simon Winchester has just been released, but I won't wait until one day it might turn up at Vinnies. Instead, I've just ordered it from Angus & Robertson. More knowledge of everything awaits me.
