Knowing What We Know by Simon Winchester

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The arc of every human life is measured out by the ceaseless accumulation of knowledge. Requiring only awareness and yet always welcoming curiosity, the transmission of knowledge into the sentient mind is an uninterruptible process of ebbings and flowings. There are times—in infancy, or when at school in youth—during which the rate at which knowledge is gathered becomes intense and urgent, a welling tsunami of information ever ready for the mind to process. At other times, maybe later in life, the inbound knowledge drifts in more slowly, set to adhere and thicken like moss, or a patina.

Digital amnesia, for example, is now widely agreed to be a phenomenon, a thing. It is a condition that posits that words looked up online are often forgotten almost as quickly as they are acquired. Information that we know can easily be Googled needs never be known, or if it is known, needs never to be retained. Telephone numbers, for example, once so often known and the more cherished ones remembered, need not even be known at all now. The name of the person to be called is all that is required. The name is hyperlinked to the phone’s dialing system and merely touching the name gets the distant phone to ring.

Epistemology is one of those ten-dollar words that make my brain hurt, particularly as its meaning is not made obvious through common Latin roots. Speaking it aloud could certainly lead one astray. It is neither the study of urine, excessive alcohol consumption, nor anger, but the study of knowledge. Winchester spends some time trying to define just what knowledge is. If you think it is something consisting of 100% verified, tested, water-tight, bullet-proof factoids, you will be disappointed. Simon traces human thought on this back to the ancients and adopts, as the world has, the definition of knowledge as “justified true belief.” (JTB) So, not the same thing as facts, information, or truth. Squishier. But still fascinating. He tracks advances in the Theory of Knowledge (TOK), (sadly, nothing to do with the media platform) including the latest thinking.

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Simon Winchester – image from Kepler’s Literary Foundation

The sub-title of the book bears noting, The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic. Once having established what knowledge actually is, Winchester goes on to write about the means by which that knowledge was dispersed. He goes back to the development of the earliest known languages, marking the bridge where pictographic symbols were succeeded by letters representing sounds. It is fascinating to note that the use of written language arose more or less at the same time across the planet, across cultures that had had no contact with each other.

Once languages existed, schools would be needed, to sustain cultures and communities. The earliest known examples sprang up in Iraq and China. So, the means of transmission, beyond the family, was teachers. Some things never change. Winchester notes the considerable similarities between ancient and modern education. And some modern differences.

A Chinese school final exam is to the American SAT as Go is to Go Fish.

He touches on the greatest hits of educational advancement. Gutenberg democratized, to a considerable degree, the acquisition of knowledge, or at least access to books, with his seminal press. A huge, big deal, as regular folks could now read materials that previously been reserved for the clergy and educated classes.

Another advancement earning considerable attention is the library, humanity’s storehouse of knowledge. Winchester goes into some detail on different sorts of libraries and how they spread. There are many fun bits of intel here, such as on the shift from scrolls to folded paper for books, and on an eccentric indexing system used in one notable private English library.

…knowledge has long been seen as far too precious to treat with casual disregard. It needs to not just be kept, but kept safe and secure. For almost as long as language, especially written language, has existed, we have sought ways of collecting, storing, and safeguarding this endlessly swelling body of what is known, of what has been learned, and of all that can then be taught, discussed, challenged, debated, and decided. The most widely recognized and most ancient means of storage is the institution that derives its English name from the Latin word for the inner bark of a tree, on which early works were said to have been written. The Latin word for this bark is liber; by way of centuries of etymological convolution, the English word, used since Chaucer’s time, is, of course, the library.

Each revolution in how knowledge was transmitted was revolutionary well beyond the specific hardware upgrade. It was not just readily printable books that revolutionized the world. Printing presses were used to print newspapers as well, ushering in a world of regular information delivery to great numbers of people. Of course, newspapers have always been used as a source of propaganda and misinformation in addition to true reporting of actual events. So the capacity for mayhem grew with the capacity for a growth in awareness.

Why…did the transmission of knowledges that seem so potentially beneficial to us all get to be so drowned out by the noise of commerce and nationalism and war?

Encyclopedias come in for a close look. They were seen as the informational bible for large numbers of people, as they sought to offer buyers all the information currently known. He covers several of the major such products, including those beyond the Encyclopedia Britannica. (I remember when I was a child in the 1950s Bronx, our local supermarket, an A&P, sold the Frunk and Wagnall’s encyclopedia volume by volume. Hardcover, very thin paper, occasional illustrations. I remember looking forward to the arrival of every single one of the twenty-five volumes. There would always be something of interest.) Such publications continued the work of Gutenberg, making potentially vast amounts of information available to regular people.

Further advances in info transmission were to come. The telegraph shrunk the world of the 19th century the way the internet has done today. Radio broadcasting had a great impact. We learn much about the early days of the BBC, and its Japanese counterpart, including the impact those institutions had on the education, and attitudes toward education, of their respective populations. This was particularly eye-opening.

The middle of the 20th century saw major advances. Computer chips revolutionized everything. Now we can access information on most things instantly, or close enough to it, using a hand-held device. And in place of bookshelf-filling volumes we can check with Wikipedia for information on almost anything.

But knowledge is a feeder to a larger question. Whither wisdom?

What can and may and will happen next to our mental development if and when we have no further need to know, perhaps no need to think? What if we are then unable to gain true knowledge, enlightenment, or insight—that most precious of human commodities, true wisdom? What then will become of us?

This is not a new concern. Socrates was worried that the development of writing would impair people’s ability to understand things. He thought that if people could access written material, they would no longer have a need to memorize said material, by which means they supposedly incorporated it into their personal long-term storage, and had it available at the speed of thought. It is no big stretch to be concerned that the outsourcing of so much intellectual heavy lifting, which has been a product of the computer revolution, might leave our minds flabby and diminished.

Winchester offers a look at the greatest thinkers of all time, polymaths ancient and modern. In addition to the usual suspects, there are some names here that will be unfamiliar. Really? I never even heard of that guy. is a reaction I had more than once to some of the personages in his all-time, intellectual all-star roster.

If there is one thing that I found lacking in the book, well, lacking is not the right word, more like something I would have liked to have seen there. Is a look at how knowledge is lost or destroyed, whether by misfortune of evil intent. For just as knowledge can advance civilization, denial of access to it can help bring about a dark age.

Winchester’s aim here is to wonder how we will fare going forward when so much of our learning is housed outside our brains. Knowledge is a crucial element in the development of wisdom. Will our brains, uncluttered of vast amounts of information, be freed to contemplate deeper truths? Or will the neurons that gather information be too softened to address heavier thinking? Given what I have heard of so many younger people in the work force, I am leaning toward the dark side on this one. But I sure hope I am wrong. Encountering a passel of bright young minds in the last few years keeps alive hopes for better.

Simon Winchester is a national treasure. (probably for two countries, as he is an English-born American citizen) He repeatedly produces amazingly interesting books that open our eyes to parts of the world, contemporary and historical, that might otherwise remain unknown. Considering how much he has taught us through his writings, there is no question but that the world is a much richer place for how much knowledge and wisdom he has imparted to us all through his ongoing production of fascinating material. You may or may not become wise as a result of reading this book, but I guarantee you will become more knowledgeable.

How, in sum, do we value the knowledge that, thanks to the magic of electronics, is now cast before us in so vast and ceaseless and unstoppable a cascade? Amid the torrent and its fury, what is to become of thought—care and calm and quiet thoughtfulness? What of our own chance of ever gaining wisdom? Do we need it? Does anybody? How does a world function if no one within it is wise?

Review posted – 9/15/23

Publication date – 4/23/23

I received an ARE of Knowing What We Know from Harper in return for a fair review.