4.0306 Information, Knowledge, and Memory (4/102)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Fri, 20 Jul 90 19:05:07 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0306. Friday, 20 Jul 1990.
(1) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 14:07 EST (25 lines)
From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU>
Subject: Heinz Pagels on Information versus Knowledge
(2) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 11:01:59 PDT (29 lines)
From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 4.0280 Query on Sherlock Holmes...
(3) Date: 19 JUL 90 17:47:46 CDT (30 lines)
From: DAVE KERBY <DAVEKERB@USMCP6>
Subject: HOLMES' MEMORY AND MARK TWAIN
(4) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 12:06:17 BST (18 lines)
From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [4.0286 Mary Dee Harris on Memory (5/139)]
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 14:07 EST
From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU>
Subject: Heinz Pagels on Information versus Knowledge
The following is extracted from a letter to the editor by Heinz R. Pagels
that appeared in The New York Times, on Friday, February 19, 1988, Late
City Final Edition, Section A, Page 35, Column 2, that was entitled: The
Computer as Scapegoat:
Some intellectual prophets have declared the end of the age of
knowledge and the beginning of the age of information. Information
tends to drive out knowledge. Information is just signs and numbers,
while knowledge involves their meaning. What we want is knowledge, but
what we get is information. It is a sign of the times that many people
cannot tell the difference between information and knowledge, not to
mention wisdom, which even knowledge tends to drive out. It is the
better part of wisdom today to make sure that people, not computers,
stand behind decisions.
I believe that this passage (which is downloaded from the NEXIS database)
has some relevance to the recent discussion about filling one's brain
up with information.
Peter D. Junger--CWRU Law School--Cleveland, Ohio
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------47----
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 11:01:59 PDT
From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 4.0280 Query on Sherlock Holmes; Quote Reference Book (2/24)
A Baker Street Irregular I'm not, but in one of the early stories ("A
Study in Scarlet"?), Watson takes stock of Holmes's knowledge, which is
vast in all matters pertaining to crime and abysmal in much else. He
did not even know whether the earth revolved around the sun or vice
versa, since it was a matter or profound indifference to him and
affected his work not at all. When taken to task, Holmes compared the
mind to a lumber room (attic), which could be well ordered with all the
relevant information one might need, or a jumble of unrelated and
useless information.
Unfortunately, in later stories Conon Doyle muddied the picture somewhat
by showing Holmes engaged in studies on black letter imprints.
This also brings to mind --in re the question of what is "information"--
Holmes's distinction between seeing and observing. He asks Watson how
many times he has seen the steps leading up to 221B Baker Street, to
which Watson replies that he has seen them some hundreds of times. Then
Holmes's asks him how many there are, a question which Watson cannot
answer but that Holmes, of course, can.
Charles Faulhaber
UC Berkeley
P.S. Coming back to this a week after the initial query, I suspect that
others will have already answered, and probably more accurately.
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------41----
Date: 19 JUL 90 17:47:46 CDT
From: DAVE KERBY <DAVEKERB@USMCP6>
Subject: HOLMES' MEMORY AND MARK TWAIN
The recent discussion about Sherlock Holmes' memory brings up a
comparison with Mark Twain. Holmes complained that learning new things
could be a bad idea, because it might crowd out old memories. Mark
Twain notes that learning new things could be a bad idea, because it
might not crowd out old memories. (Forgive me if someone else has noted
the parallel. I have been absent from HUMANIST for most of the summer.)
The passage occurs in _Life on the Mississippi_. In Chapter 13, Twain
speaks of a pilot whose memory was amazing. After seeing each part of
the river once in the day and once at night, his memory was so nearly
complete that he took out a daylight license. After only a few trips,
he obtained a full license. The man forgot very little.
Wrote Twain: "Such a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all
occurrences are of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an
interesting circumstance from an uninteresting one. As a talker, he is
bound to clog his narrative with tiresome details and make himself an
insufferable bore. Moreover, he cannot stick to his subject. He picks
up every little grain of memory he discerns in his way, and so is led
aside."
-- Dave Kerby
University of Southern Mississippi
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
<DAVEKERB@USMCP6.BITNET>
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 12:06:17 BST
From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [4.0286 Mary Dee Harris on Memory (5/139)]
We appear to have at least two different kinds of memory; one short-term
and one permanent. A colleague of mine who suffered from a horrendous
attack of meningitis as a child was left bereft of the former. She was
totally incapable of looking at a phone number, turning to the phone
and dialling it; she had consciously to `learn' the number. Lucky
for her that Conan Doyle was wrong! Of course, the more permanent
long-term memory gets lost or confused, and there is that strange
phenomenon of `knowing that I know x' without being able to recall
it, and perhaps the even stranger one of leucotomised patients who
`know' one set of data if they read a question and a totally different
set if the question is received aurally. Anyone an expert on memories
out there?
Douglas de Lacey.