Without internally stored knowledge, the brain's natural error-detection mechanisms lie dormant. We become not just dependent on external tools but vulnerable to their failures, unable to distinguish sense from nonsense.

This is expertise: not conscious calculation, but fluency born of deep practice. The paradox is that by memorising so much you can actually forget about the very thing that took up all your cognitive bandwidth. The automaticity is a liberation and affords the bandwidth for the kind of creativity that separates novices from experts.

When we... See more