We have met the Devil of Information Overload and his impish underlings, the computer virus, the busy signal, the dead link, and the PowerPoint presentation.
James GleickRead
Type 'What is th' and faster than you can find the 'e' Google is sending choices back at you: 'What is the cloud?' 'What is the mean?' 'What is the American dream?' 'What is the illuminati?' Google is trying to read your mind. Only it's not your mind. It's the World Brain.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the rapid response and vast knowledge accessible through the internet, likening it to a collective consciousness.
James Gleick highlights how Google and similar search engines have transformed our access to information, responding instantaneously to our queries. He suggests that this technology creates a form of collective intelligence, which he refers to as the 'World Brain,' emphasizing both the capabilities and implications of such a powerful tool in understanding and interpreting human thought.
Themes
GoogleInformationWorld BrainTechnologyCollective Consciousness
In practice
Example use cases
In a tech conference discussing the role of search engines in modern society.
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All quotes →A good part of 'The Information' is about the transition from an oral to a literary culture. Books effected such a great transformation in the way we think about the world, our history, our logic, mathematics, you name it. I think we would be greatly diminished as a people and as a culture if the book became obsolete.
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Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.
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"Half genius and half buffoon," Freeman Dyson ... wrote. ... [Richard] Feynman struck him as uproariously American-unbuttoned and burning with physical energy. It took him a while to realize how obsessively his new friend was tunneling into the very bedrock of modern science.
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