Thanks for your two replies, Dellu – both very sensible.

I was amazed and impressed to hear that Neal Stephenson deliberately eschewed his usual digital knowledge bases when putting together his plans/references etc. for the amazing Baroque Cycle trilogy of novels about the 17-18 centuries. The books (all around 1000 pages) are crammed with erudite knowledge, as well as amazingly complex, interrelated references plus, of course, a vast cast of characters, all with their little foibles and obsessions – again, all interlinked and wittily leveraged at appropriate moments.

The thought of putting something like that together without some kind of digital support brings me out in a cold sweat! But it certainly makes one think.

And yes, Neal Stephenson is extremely intelligent!

Dellu wrote:

It seems to me that extremely intelligent people might not need
computers that much to generate innovative ideas; and to connect
concepts that they read a year ago with the concepts that they are
thinking about right now.

If you are very brilliant, and have a powerful memory, your brain does
most of the connection and remembering: you don't need an external
assistance. From interviews and other peoples comments, that is exactly
how Noam Chomsky works, for example. He doesn't use technology for
thinking. He uses paper and pen. Computers are used only for typing.
Still, he produces the most mind boggling ideas; and connects the
present events with the event that happened in the 60's and 70' with
ease.

I cannot do that. I would be paralyzed if I don't have the data (notes)
and stuff on my computer, because I have weaker brain--cannot remember
details, and cannot connect complex ideas once they reach a certain
level of complexity.

Yes, Einstein might not have benefited from computers. But, for the
regular Joh, they are the tools which help us as close as possible to
the thinking capacities of these powerful brains.