Educating ourselves for survival in the Information Age

[_MeDotOrg]

We are living at the beginning of the Information Age. There are no bridges, automobiles or skyscrapers with which we mark the Information Age, or any massive monuments that let us know that the world has changed. The visual signposts are, in fact, getting smaller, now as small as the smart phone in your pocket (Or, if I'm au courant, a smartwatch on your wrist). But the impact on our brains is far more profound.

Our brains are processing data at incredibly rapid rates. The way a child can process and respond to multimedia stimulation would baffle an adult of 100 years ago.

Most information is noise. Our children will have to be far more sophisticated than we are at discerning facts from noise in the information age. It will be a vital skill.

Facts. Facts are the atoms with which reason is constructed. It may not solve our differences, but having certain agreed-upon set of facts is extraordinarily important. For example, we cannot be so commodious as to accept the age of the Earth as between 6,000 and 4,500,000,000 years old.

And to assemble those facts we need logic and reasoning abilities. I propose that we start having logic and reasoning skills as a mandatory high school class. Yes, high school. Logic and reason would be the closest thing I would ever propose to a voter literacy test.

Think of it as the ultimate Western Civilization refresher course. We have lost touch with the basic roots of logical construction with which we build our Civilization. That is why many voters are so susceptible to illogical arguments.

Many people have let reason become a slave to narrative. When constructing your philosophy be a slave only to facts. Facts will direct you towards the truth.

Anyway, I think the ability to think critically, logically and rationally are increasingly important skills for the average citizen in a 21st Century democracy.