Whether based on experience, experiment, history, hearsay, logic, opinion, philosophy, intuition, imagination or creed, the heart of understanding is questioning. If you stop questioning, understanding dies.
Back in the last century, I taught high school chemistry with lots of lab work. We said we were doing experiments but it was actually recipes contrived to illustrate teaching points. Nothing experimental about that. We called it experiment because that sounded more like science. If it's science, it must be true. Right? Not exactly. If it's science, somebody somewhere is doing experiments because there are questions waiting to be answered. And as soon as there are answers, there are more questions.
I remember, one year there was a French student in the class. She did les expériences while the rest of the kids pretended to do experiments as they followed recipes. Any science involved was second hand out of the textbook, a mere history of science, a collection of answers which continues to evolve beyond the textbook because there are people in actual laboratories doing actual experiments to answer actual questions. High school chemistry was experiential, not experimental.
Speaking of experience, the smoke alarm wakes us up just after 1:00 AM. I check the whole house for smoke, but nope, no fire, so back to bed. Off goes the smoke alarm again, which raises questions.
Is it another of those phantom auditory hallucinations that goes with hearing loss? No, that's not it; Dorothy heard it too.
Did somebody hack into our electronics to get us out of the house so they can steal our stuff? I should check for shifty guys in hoodies waiting outside.
Is there an elf having fun with us? I go to the computer to ask Bing about catching an elf. Bing says, "put out some candy, find a hiding spot and wait."
Questions beget questions. Is Bing the spider on The Web? Is Bing trying to phish me into the matrix so he can feed on our data? I'll let you know if I start getting spam for Elf-on-a-shelf.
Speaking of spiders, is there a spider in the smoke alarm? I think I understand. Maybe I'll get out the vacuum some day like I should have done last month.
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The Problem With The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy. David Weinberger
The writer of the referred article challenges the link between information and knowledge. I certainly agree with his arguments. I'm only sorry he didn't discuss the unlikelihood of any easy evolution between knowledge and wisdom. His "(much less wisdom") implies so much and says so little.
ReplyDeleteWhat is wisdom? What is its source? Is it the composite result of data, information and knowledge as suggested in the D/I/ K/W hierarchy? If only...
My answer to the question "what is wisdom" is exactly what you demonstrate when you keep asking questions. It is wise to know that knowledge is incomplete and fallible and wonder what you have missed or misunderstood. To be consistent, I have to question whether questioning is the whole answer. This is another of those recursive paradoxes that devours itself like an Ouroboros. Spoiler: perhaps the domain of cognition isn't everything. There is Something More.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of the recent Sunday discussion about "spirituality" -- partially defined as "something more"-- something beyond the evident, the obvious. How is this (or is it) similar to the notion that wisdom is something beyond the mere knowledge, or information? How difficult it is to put definitions to abstracts; hence the requirement for metaphors and analagies.
ReplyDelete