Encyclopaedia Britannica: Observations

Encyclopaedia Britannica: Observations
Cognitive Encyclopedic Absurdity or … Good Riddance to Literary Posturing

By Joseph Andrew Settanni

Ever since about the 18th (and some would say the 17th century), when science was able to unite with technology for the advent of scientific technology, change in the Western world had accelerated geometrically. The present century is, of course, highly illustrative of this omnipresent reality, at a minimum.

Optical computers will, over the next ten years, come to replace most of the high-end, transistor-based ones in their storing and transmitting data/information on beams of light. Whether for good or ill, Q & R Codes, by the end of this century, will come to fully replace the printed word for most public purposes; literacy itself, moreover, will soon come to usually mean if someone is functionally computer literate.

In the USA, as of this year, cursive writing, it was publicly made known, will no longer be routinely or regularly taught in most public and, very soon, private schools; the ignorant rising generations, then deprived of such a literary inheritance, are to lack the capacity to read cursive documents, much less to write in that manner; these noted and many aforementioned matters are all so definitely momentous, though fully debatable, changes of significant importance on an intellectual, social, and cultural level. An era of basic noetic transition is upon the human race, therefore, within the so-called civilized world.

The fundamental trend, while largely eviscerating cognition itself, is increasingly toward a simplified, extremely visual-oriented culture geared toward images, then sounds and, lastly, textual significations, usually printed words on a computer monitor or other such visual device to be, later, replaced mainly by Q & R codes, of course. One strongly suspects, furthermore, that the bulk of advanced postmodern society is heading in the rather frightening direction of the essentially witless Eloi race, invented by the Fabian Socialist H. G. Wells, in his futuristic novel entitled: The Time Machine.

Physical Books v. Computerization

And, a unique or special kind of cultural-intellectual milestone, after 244 years, had been passed in 2012. It was so announced, this year, that the famed Encyclopaedia Britannica would cease, forever more, to publish any print editions. The last actually printed edition was, in fact, done in 2010. Many people used honorific words to lovingly describe the Encyclopaedia Britannica, such as it being a “venerable reference set” for public use. What did it contain?

That had then vaingloriously consisted of: 32 volumes weighing 129 pounds, stretching up to 4 feet in length, with a full literary capacity boasting 4,000+ contributors, covering 65,000 articles, containing then 44 million words presented upon no less than 32,640 pages. Can something be openly said about such an accomplishment or, perhaps, assumed monumental achievement done in the early 21st century?

O! How tremendously stupid! And, in addition, what a titanic waste of paper! Several generations ago, it ought, thus, to have obviously occurred that the rather absurd presumptuousness, overt inappropriateness, of there being such a thing continuing as the Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB) should, intellectually speaking, have been then rather much too evident. Much the same could, in fairness, be so said for the also “sacred” OED (Oxford English Dictionary) well beloved by various assorted bibliophiles. Why?

The continuing enormous avalanche of data, facts, knowledge, information, etc. coming after the mid-20th century had, therefore, alerted sentient minds, long ago, that any (efforts at having actually printed) encyclopedias were certainly becoming quite antiquated. The Information Explosion, as it had been called some time ago, is for real.

Among others, Alvin Toffler, decades ago by now, had publicly stated, e. g., that 90% of the scientists who ever lived in this world are alive and working today, which fact alone substantially helps to rapidly multiply the surely internationally expanding knowledge base. In short, no one publication, in print or otherwise, and no matter how supposedly comprehensive can actually boast to contain “all” fundamental or relevant knowledge. The time for such publications has long past. Hint: the market for the sale of slide rulers is rather limited in this country.

Universality of Knowledge v. Limited Containment

What is, however, the most salient point being here rightly asseverated? No one source in print or even online, such as Wikipedia, can validly claim the presumptive universality once asserted by the intellectual and cultural effort to publish an encyclopedia, especially into the 21st century no less, with its ever internationally escalating internet, proliferating kinds, forms, and types e-devices, etc.

Today, there are, literally, many sub-sub-specializations undreamt of by previous generations; whole areas of knowledge unknown to prior times are, moreover, being so regularly added to; and, it has been estimated, conservatively, that the last 30 years alone has produced more knowledge than the previous 5,000 years of recorded history. But, useful criticism of the EB does not, however, stop there.

The very idea, much less the physical substance in print, of the often culturally celebrated and highly exalted EB became a joke decades ago. Truly “encyclopedic” compilations, by exact correct definition, of any officially and precisely assembled units of knowledge, as sections of books, are completely impossible to ever attain in any truly realistic sense whatsoever, though a metaphorical assertion is, of course, easily allowable per se.

Up to about the very early 20th century, it was still possible to make a general claim to some sort of comprehensive compilation of the “available knowledge” extant in the world, which was reasonable and rational in its intent; in prior centuries, this was even truer, of course, in quite practical terms of reference. And, admittedly, a few highly educated savants, in, say, the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries, could claim that they had, fundamentally, acquired a rather extensive base of knowledge that was at or nearly encyclopedic in its depth and scope.

But, today, realistically speaking, no one person or, on the other hand, any one assumed complete assemblage, as to an incredible database, could now truly contain all conceivable universal data, as to the very extended range of information, necessarily required for then claiming a sort of basic totality qua universality. It simply cannot be (empirically) done. Furthermore, in the past several decades, at the least, the proverbial writing was on the wall, as to the truth surely involved, pertaining to any plausibly asserted, encyclopedic comprehensiveness.

Conclusion

Efforts to attempt to congeal or compact into one source everything that could possibly be known about various kinds of subjects/topics or matters ought to be abandoned as absurd. Comprehensiveness, especially into the 21st century and beyond, cannot intellectually any longer be held to be comprehensive enough. The existence of many sub-sub-specializations, going deep down into various subjects and subsets of subsets of subjects, continues now unabated, meaning, of course, as the knowledge base itself expands exponentially, not arithmetically.

Thus, all (assumed) encyclopedias, meaning directly compilations meant explicitly to cover a universality of some sort of knowledge, are mere (academic) jokes, including all of the efforts, for instance, of Wikipedia. Though such online publications may, at times, be (subjectively) useful; they still do barely scratch the surface as to presenting everything that could, in fact, be internationally known. One can come to reasonably understand, therefore, that all of today’s most extensive major reference works are, moreover, but partial minor efforts at best.

Not surprisingly, a great career for the future would certainly be that of a knowledge researcher, someone who just researches knowledge itself as to what it is, where it may be located, how it can be used, sources of its generation, knowing about the different branches of knowledge, etc. The universe awaits.