Perhaps for evolutionary reasons, having a good memory is important so we can for example, remember where the best hunting grounds are or how to make a spear for when we get there. As a precursor to the memory, experience becomes valuable in order to create valuable knowledge we can commit to memory, to recall when we need. As a result, this is probably why we value people who "know stuff", even if we do not well consider whether what they know is valuable to us.
I don't know who said it first - it could have been me - but for a long time, I have considered the very large gap between knowledge and behavior, which I summarize as, Knowing is not doing. There are lots of people who know stuff, less who can apply what they know at a practical level, and with the stream of information at our fingertips, there might be very little practical in the pool of information.
But, this "fingertip access" brings into question our weighting of valuing what people know, meaning what they are able to recall from their memory - since pretty much everything known is available within seconds with a search. This means that what is actually important and perhaps more than ever in terms of value, is whether a person is able to apply what they know at a practical level for a good result. For example, you might not want a surgeon searching for "how to use a scalpel" two minutes before surgery begins - you will be hoping that they have already committed that information to memory in a way that the action is automatic, so they can focus on other aspects of the surgery, rather than the basics of medical practice.
Is knowledge important when we can all have it for free instantly? I think that one of the problems with the internet information and social media is that many people are able to Google their knowledge in order to feign skill, but do not have know how to practically apply it, as they don't have the practical experience to actually commit it to memory. The analogy I normally present for this is using a navigator to find an unknown location - even though one can get to the location, it is common that if they need to get there again, they will need the navigator again also - they don't actually know how to drive there, they just know where to find out and how to follow directions.
I believe that the access to information is great, but it also lessons the value of the information itself, as pretty much anyone has access, even if they have zero experience with or need for that information. However, because this builds the confidence for people to have online arguments about things they know nothing about, it reduces the amount of people who actually build skill around it, while simultaneously can increase the attention and potential demand for the skill to be applied. This means that there is a rising scarcity of practical skill in areas that people are looking for skilled people, but there is also a rising number of people who believe they are skilled, because Google gave them some knowledge and made them confident.
It is brilliant to have all the information available of course, as it opens us up to potential that we might not have had otherwise, for example, getting into blockchain, crypto and associated industries. Since I write what I know with a heavy slant on what I do and observe in the real world, that hasn't been an issue, but the technical side of things has meant that I have been able to get up to speed on points that are important to me and start delving deep enough to be able to use some facets of them, as well as talk about the high-level views of things.
But, if it was only high-level views that I held, I wouldn't necessarily have the practical insight into being able to offer much of value to the physical world. I think a lot of people can talk about a lot of things, thinking that the talk itself is what is valuable without recognizing the need to either act themselves or, invoke action from others. A lot of the arguments and disagreements are people telling the other "what they know" without the practical skills of conveying the message for consideration, let alone to change a mind or influence future behavior - so there is no practical transference, just air.
We live in the information era, a world where the collective knowledge of us all is available predominantly freely. But, evolution isn't driven by data, evolution is a product of movement, with the synthesized information being a byproduct that we could use to inform and perform our next movement. If we don't change, we haven't learned, even if we know that we could and possibly should change behavior.
It might be a problem of what we know, not the amount that we know, with where we are lacking in knowledge being the information that takes the energy potential of what we know and activates it into practical movement. Imagine knowing the information that can activate yourself into happily eating healthily and exercising well for optimal health and image being able to tell that information to everyone in a way that it gets turned into practical knowledge, globally. What would that world look like? It isn't that we don't have good information that will generally achieve this, but we don't seem to have the magical bit of information to enact it at scale - with only some individuals discovering the knowledge and understanding that works for them consistently.
While knowing isn't doing, it doesn't really work consistently in reverse, as doing doesn't mean one has to know - as while it can be in the memory, it may be in an inaccessible area of the mind, the unconscious. It doesn't stop the doing, but it makes putting the information forward for other s to consider difficult, other than through demonstration.
When I first started dancing, one of the instructors was a teacher who had no idea how to identify and correct problems, nor tell the students about steps or position at all - but she was a fantastic dancer - she knew how to dance, follow a lead and move her body in unison with the music with precision - She did, but didn't know how she did.
We value people with know-how, but we seem to have lost the connection to the do-how practical, as we spend more time online talking about things, less time actually doing them.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
I am heavily biased in this topic, as I have a memory that would make a goldfish feel sorry for me, so I have to learn the practical side of things and not rely on my ability to remember process. However, my memory is perhaps more selective than a complete write-off, as I am able to do and observe my world and break it down as I am experiencing it, in a way that I can "apply" it later as a lesson of some kind. I do learn, but I am selective with what I commit for immediate recall. With the ability to have all that information at my fingertips, I can focus my energy on learning more of what is important, and following the YouTube guide for when it isn't in my area of interest or expertise.