Knowledge and Information LO30599

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 09/18/03


Replying to LO30588 --

Dear Organlearners,

Mark McElroy <mmcelroy@vermontel.net> wrote:

>Thank you for your very thoughtful reply. Please see my
>further responses interspersed below.

Greetings dear Mark,

I can say even more of the same to your response!

I want to avoid a marathon reply. So i will answer to only a few of your
comments. But first allow me a general impression of the marathon so far.
There is not so much difference between our ways of thinking as i
suspected originally. Most of the differences which we have, stems from
the different distinctions we make between knowledge and information.

>Another value-laden term. To say that an action is 'constructive'
>is to beg the question, as much as to say that it is 'effective' does.

I agree. But i have found a way how to explore this 'construtive'. It is
to make use of each of the 7Es (seven essentialities of creativity).
However, since you are not familiar with them, my answer only begs another
questions.

>As for wisdom, I really don't know what to make of that term.
>Mostly I see it as a vestige of the data, information, knowledge,
>wisdom (DIKW) pyramid, which I think is nonsense. I have
>yet to see a use of the term that constitutes a departure from
>what the term 'knowledge' already means. Thus, its use tends
>to be mystical, imprecise, even ambiguous, ill considered, and
>sloppy. If you think it differs from what 'knowledge' already
>provides, please tell me what you think it is.

I once wrote an essay for fellow learners on wisdom. It must be somewhere
in the archives. I do not want to dig that up. I agree with much of what
you wrote about its usage.

I want to make the following remark. The analects (wise sayings) of
Confucius and his successors number by the hundreds. But strangely, not
one of them has even tried to say what wisdom is. Perhaps this was wisdom.

In book Proverbs of the Bible it is said that wisdom is the fear for God
and His law. I am not happy with this, but i know nothing of Hebrew to
study the information in the orginal text. If actually said that wisdom is
the respect for God and His law, i would have been satisfied. There is
much difference between fear and respect and how we act accordingly.

>Sorry At, but you've lost me here. If your objective is to
>'keep the plant alive and propagating,' then you need BOTH
>knowledge of its structure and the environmetal conditions
>needed to support it.

I tried to illustrate some principle(?) using a plant as example. The
principle is to "complete the loop of thinking". For example, should we
apply analytical thinking, we have to complement it with synthesis
(synthetical sounds horrible) in our thinking until we at the same level
where we began with the analytical thinking. Here "analysis/synthesis" is
an example of two mental actions going in opposite directions.

>First, I do not subscribe to the 'information is only external
>to the human' view, because I know that I can hold information
>in my mind and not regard it as knowledge. In fact, I can think
>of information that I believe is false. Therefore, information can
>be held in human minds and not be knowledge.

I agree. I never disputed this fact. I should have written that
information exists "primarily" outside the mind.

>You should not speak of my KM as IM because I sharply
>distinguish between the two. Thus, I do not wish to be
>interpreted in that way.

I am sorry that the meaning came through this way. I had no intention to
associate you with IM (Information Management). As for me, i have a
personal "IM" system which i use every day when i have to work with
information (in sources, not minds ;-)

>Yes, and doesn't this sound an awful lot like the process I
>described above of taking competing knowledge claims and
>submitting them to our tests and evaluations? Here you suggest
>a test of 'logical consistency,' which is one I happen to subscribe
>to myself.

When i began to study Symbolic Logic some thirty years ago on my own
steam, i often could not help to think how much my own logical thinking
had been influenced by trying to understand chemistry. Only much, much
later did i discover that there are close correspondences between the
"logic of chemistry" and the "categorical logic of topoi" or "toposlogic"
for short. I will not try to explain "toposlogic" except to say that it is
the most advanced and encompassing study of logic at present. That these
two logics (the chemical one empirically based and the mathematical one
axiomatically based) converged, surprised me very much. I found seven
corresponding patterns in this convergence which eventually enabled me to
formulate the 7Es.

>Thank you, too, At for the opportunity to put a finer point
>on my own ideas, even as I manage to get a better
>understanding of yours.

The same here.

This is the power, no, strength of the open dialogue! It transcends
paradigmatic differences so that authentic learning can happen despite
such differences.

Thank you for your patience.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@postino.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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