Our influence is determined by our memory. The same data can be connected in a variety of ways, at different times and for different purposes. It is we who make the decisions.
Before writing, memory was essentially human. People learned by rote and made sure that important things were passed on orally to the next people. The storage capacity was that of the individuals. With writing, the idea of perennial texts took shape, but the problem of the medium remained. Stone allowed for long-term preservation, but papyrus was much more practical. It was possible to start recording data and transporting them. With the printing press, the reproduction of the same source guaranteed a wider distribution and certain durability. From there accumulation became possible, limited mainly by the costs of reproduction, media, and storage.
In human memory, the process of filing is accomplished very efficiently; the challenge is quite different in a library with physical documents. Today, the cost of reproducing organized knowledge is becoming marginal, as is the cost of support and storage.
A library can fit in a phone or a reader, and classification has become semantic, supported by artificial intelligence. The entire library can be accessed without having to file it.
The idea of owning the information is abandoned for the much more convenient idea of accessing it. Who cares about knowing your multiplication tables when you have a calculator? Even alphabetical order is downgraded by semantic relevance. What remains is the capacity for analysis and discern; how reliable is the information? What relevance? The experience stored in our memory can serve but more importantly, our values and those of our institutions, with their biases and ambitions.
Montaigne's idea of a "head well made rather than well-filled" was primarily aimed at teachers and is more appropriate than ever. In this world of data, the ability to discern becomes a priority in education. Our memory fills and empties based on our interests and experiences; what remains is the satisfaction we derive from our actions. We are not our memory but those who interpret its data.
Denys Lamontagne - [email protected]
