Knowledge and wisdom? LO28502

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 05/15/02


Replying to LO28461 --

Dear Organlearners,

Andrew Campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:

>Any which have tried to expunge the combined
>idea of the mage and the sage has come to grief

Greetings dear Andrew,

I write, bearing in mind Proverbs 14:33
"Wisdom rests in the heart of one who has understanding,
but in the bosom of fools it is made known."
But I also have to bear in mind Proverbs 15:7
"The lips of the wise spread knowledge,
but the hearts of fools are not so."
By this I do not imply I am wise, but that I seek wisdom like others.

You have written a lot in LO28461. But the sentence quoted keeps on
haunting my mind.

I think of a mage as much different to a sorcerer. For me a mage
does seemingly impossible things because of deft skills acquired
through immense practice. It is like Proverbs 22:29
"Do you see a man skilled in his work?
He will stand before kings;
He will not stand before obscure men."

A sorcerer does seemingly possible things, but in ways which
make these things actually impossible. Hence these things, when
they do appear, have been brought in secretly by a back door.
It is like in Proverbs 14:14
"The backslider will have his fill of his own ways,
but the good man will become satisfied with his."

Knowledge has for me a magic aura. I think of my own knowledge as having
four levels in the following emerging order:- experiental, tacit, formal,
sapient.

It is also the order in which the magical aura of each increases. I
searched whether it has do with anything else than the emergence
of each, but I cannot find anything else. It is like in Proverbs 18:4
"The words of a man's mouth are deep waters;
The fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook."

Thus for me the sage and the mage go hand in hand, almost like
complementary duals. So what sustains the "mage-sage"? Is the
answer not in Proverbs 9:1
"Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn out her seven pillars."

In what do these seven pillars get anchored? Michael Polanyi
opens it up very good for me. First he says:
"It is the image of humanity emerged in potential thought
that I find revelaling for the problems of our day."
He then adds that this image
"... offers each of us the chance of creative originality ..."
This is the clue to the foundation of the seven pillars.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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