How bad is your googling habit and what does it mean?

People who must tell other people they don't know what they're talking about are usually the ones who really don't know what they are talking about. And I don't need Google to support this claim; I've got EvC.”HM

Hey, what do you exect from a civil engineer? Scintillating brilliance? At least we know what to expect from chemists...plastic Tinkertoys.

anglagard, as a community college librarian, you are probably an authority on googleology. I certainly don't mean to say Google is the only powerful search engine. Pick anyone you like. I'm only saying that they represent a new form of collective consciousness. The Internet itself is a new form of colective consciousness, comprising information gods who help us find what we are looking for in life. We didn't have that huge advantage back when I was in school. My last degree was in engineering in 1972, and if I wanted to know something about, say, the precise locations of functioning hydrological stations on the Themes, I had to do a bit more than just Google up that info. But, now, instead of taking a librarian twelve hours of work and three weeks of waiting, I can have it an instant with just a few flicks of my fingertips.My OP inquiry was about whether or not this amounts to the appearance of a awesome, new encyclopedic monster or just a better lady at the desk who will try to do cartwheels for you through the archives and get back to you in a month or two.I dare say that my need for you, as a college librarian, has slipped down my list of important resources to have around because of Google and its peers. Once you were absolutely indespensible. Now you are good for making coffee and ordering more 3x5 cards. Or are you really, as you say, more important than the Great Lord Google Himself?”HM

anglagard, you are the one who knows what a better librarian means. And you know what computer/Internet technology means in terms of enhancing our access to more information. Maybe Google and its peers mean only more access but not more of a threat to the evolving affairs of humans. Or maybe Google et all. mean something else. Many historians have argued that Gutenberg's printing press set off the Reformation, owing to the explosive nature of shared information. It was that splendid new access to information that was the trouble. And maybe Diderot's Encyclopedia set off the French Revolution, as some have argued. And now we're anxiously anticipating The Singularity and The Law of Accelerating Returns. Google seems to be a vanguard for those thrusts of cybernetic take over.Or am I just dreaming? What does a professional librarian think about this threat of a cyber-social revolution, when the computers collectively know more than the collective human population?”HM

And humans?

You mean to tell me computers don't know how to play chess?Edited by Hoot Mon, : Never heard of "comupters"

Every human child has to be programmed for the desired output. Ay, Canuckistanian?”HM

Jon, do you suppose we will move closer to God or further away from Him when the Singularity overtakes us and we discover that we're here only for the computers and the cyberlords who gather therein?”HM

So humans come into this world already programmed to play chess? I don't think so. They need programming and a lot of it just to avoid a fool's mate. Try the Turing Test on Deep Blue and see what you get. For both humans and computers it's garbage in-garbage out.”HM

Your analogy is silly. What about a computer programming another computer. What about a computer programming a human? Humans can teach humans math, humans can teach computers math, computers can teach computers math, and computers can teach humans math. We have to be programmed (or taught) at one time or another.But maybe things are different up there in the wastelands of Canuckistan.”HM Edited by Hoot Mon, : changed Percy to Ringo

Close enough for government work and to make an argument that when a kid recites his multiplication tables he is being programmed to do mathematics. No need to be fussy about a distinction between programnming and teaching. And forget your two-way streets, unless you're willing to admit that computer programming is also iterational.”HM

Port-Darwinian evolution of the human species may include the principle of recursive bootstrapping, wherein the computers keep humans around to make more copies of them”computers, that is”and to make them better, too. In return we get googled. Yes, we may be transiting into Digitalea. And to say we humans are not programmable is to ignore religion, hypnosis, consumerism, racism, professional sports, Hitler Youth, and the Holocaust.”HM

Why isn't it. When I used to program computers it was very interational.”HM

I wonder how to go about finding that support. Hmmm...let me see...”HM