Thread by @bansisharma

1. Intelligence & Wisdom in the Age of Internet
Internet knows it all and shares it all ... well, pretty much all. There is no topic of any significance for which anyone with access to internet cannot find more information easily than they can assimilate in a lifetime.

2. Internet is only going to get even better and faster in terms of serving information to all comers. The interface to the Internet will of course also get better. We can already just ask questions out loud, instead of typing them in, and get answers.

3. It's only a matter of time before a direct interface with the brain/thoughts becomes routine. Just think of a question and the answer will be served straight to your brain. In other words the whole Internet will be just a peripheral device hooked up seamlessly to your brain.

4. In a rudimentary way, it's pretty much already the case. So in a world where the answer to every reasonable question is readily available to everyone in a heartbeat, what would be the value of education (beyond the ability to use the Internet interface)?

5. What would it mean to be informed, to be intelligent, to be a critical thinker, to be wise? Will human beings become spare parts, redundant to each other, totally dispensable, and of little consequence to each other? Who will lead human progress and how? Will humans matter?

6. The answer is a resounding YES! And I don't mean only in a spiritual sense of all those uniquely human qualities that transcend any materialistic notions of humanity. I also mean in the concrete didactic, information processing and synthesis sense.

7. Because, you see, no matter how vast, quick, and accurate the Internet becomes in answering any question, it will never be able to tell you which questions to ask -- not beyond the trivially mechanistic ones.

8. Intellect ultimately is about the ability to ask the right questions. Intelligence ultimately is about the ability to ask the relevant questions for the problem at hand. Wisdom ultimately is about asking the right questions for the mankind.

9. Worry less about mounds of information, or how many articles you have read, or how many articles you can throw back at anyone arguing with you. Focus on asking the right questions. A good question is far more valuable than an irrelevant library full of answers.

The End