I was lucky to get a very good formal education. Yet I started the same as you Jar, and loved diving through encyclopedias as well as stacks at the public library. I still love huge libraries.
It was always like a treasure hunt leading from one piece of gold to another.
When going to get my formal education, I discovered a vast difference between those who were like me and those who were not.
I generally did better and could actually speak about things (enjoyed discussing things) outside of class and did not shudder at having to look something up. Yeah I was still lazy with written homework (at first), but I loved the search for knowledge.
To my mind people do not really need formal educations, just this drive. The formal part only documents some of the time you spent was focused on one area. It does not say whether you did more, or understood anything.
I do not believe the internet has stopped this. It poses many other problems (or rather our reaction to it has posed many other problems), but it has actually allowed me to move quickly and easily from one topic to the next.
Doing research on historical timelines led me to cosmology led me to discovering the ID movement which led me to here.
I mean I had seen ID in action before, but did not realize its extensive nature and efforts until I found it on the internet. And from that I was also able to pick out which books I needed to read from the library.
And this is not to mention all the porn that I...
Sorry, but I was thinking about that looking for a needle in a haystack and finding the farmer's daughter thing.
Anyhow, curiosity may have killed the cat, but I don't believe the internet has killed serendipity.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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