High Cognitive Minds

A large proportion of my life is centered on the internet, which would seem to make me either a geek with no real life, or a loser who escapes real life via the net. There’s a good bit of overlap between the two, and at least a smidgeon of truth. But over the last couple of months I’ve begun to look at the internet in a new way that’s still evolving in my mind.

My impression is that, even for those who recognize the resources available on the web, it’s still not much more than a supplement to “real” education and real life. Real knowledge exists out there in the three dimensional world, and everything on the net runs a poor second.  I was past that simplistic notion but I hadn’t gone too much beyond it.

The day that changed was the day I fully understood the niche I’ve been working in for so long, and how important the web has been to its development. I already knew that nobody else was doing what I’ve been doing—creating a unique body of work in a stagnant but important area of knowledge. What I finally realized was that my laboratory has been the internet. Without thinking about it as such, I’ve spent the last few years doing field research, and doing it without all the usual supports (necessities)—grant money, colleagues’ oversight and advice, institutional approval, etc.  

And that changes everything. It’s a watershed, in a way that I can’t fully grasp yet. I do know that if I can grasp it—if others can grasp it—it will be a major shift in the way intelligent self-sufficient people conduct their education and their lives. Maybe that’s why it suddenly felt like the right time to build the website.