However, I think the answer to the question he raises is most likely obvious to anyone that has spent any deal of time surfing Wikipedia as I sometimes find myself doing. I simply do not retain even a fraction of the information I am exposed to, but I remain a functional person. I am swayed further, though, by the research of a German scientist named Gerd Gigerenzer who has made a name for himself by proving just how simply our minds actually work, even in the presence of an overwhelming amount of information. His research as the Director of the Max Planck Institute of Human Development has shown that most human thought processes follow simple rules, called heuristics, even when challenged to solve complicated tasks.
Consider how baseball players catch a ball. It may seem that they would have to solve complex differential equations in their heads to predict the trajectory of the ball. In fact, players use a simple heuristic. ... The heuristic is to adjust the running speed so that the angle of gaze remains constant —that is, the angle between the eye and the ball. The player can ignore all the information necessary to compute the trajectory ... and just focus on one piece of information, the angle of gaze."
I believe that even though we are now exposed to the largest tsunami and resulting flood of information humanity has ever seen, we human beings will continue to follow very simple, but effective rules as our astrolabe. What simple rules do you navigate by? http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gigerenzer03/gigerenzer_index.html
I also strongly recommend Gerd's book Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious to those further interested.
