Tools That Change the Way We Think

"Back in 2004, I asked [Google founders] Page and Brin what they saw as the future of Google search. 'It will be included in people's brains,' said Page. 'When you think about something and don't really know much about it, you will automatically get information.'

'That's true,' said Brin. 'Ultimately I view Google as a way to augment your brain with the knowledge of the world. Right now you go into your computer and type a phrase, but you can imagine that it could be easier in the future, that you can have just devices you talk into, or you can have computers that pay attention to what's going on around them and suggest useful information.'

'Somebody introduces themselves to you, and your watch goes to your web page,' said Page. 'Or if you met this person two years ago, this is what they said to you... Eventually you'll have the implant, where if you think about a fact, it will just tell you the answer."

-From In the Plex by Steven Levy (p.67)


I've found that education is different for me than for generations of the past. Information comes easily, and without the effort that people of the past went through to learn. Learning is not just reading and writing now. It isn't basic math. Learning and thinking has become more critical. What do we want to learn? In today's world we have every resource available to us. Whether we use those resources for good, or for other more destructive purposes is entirely us to us. People can either go with the flow of information fed to them, or go beyond the relm of known facts to something worth knowing, that not everyone accepts as fact. Today, I have less of a problem challenging the facts given to me. I accept what I'm told, and don't go beyond the relms of convience. My thinking is something that hasn't gotten lazy. My ideas are still my own. I know what I think, I may not challenge it because of laziness, but I know what is right, I know what I should do still, I can thinik for myself, I have my good ideas. I may be lazier, but I know how to think for myself.